&* 


THE  EUROPEANS. 


BY 

HENRY  JAMES,  JB. 


BOSTON: 

HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  AND   COMPANY. 
Htoersfoe  JDre0<$,  Camfirttfffe* 

1879. 


Copyright,  1873, 
BY  HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE  : 

STEREOTYPED    AND    PRINTED     BY 

H.  0.  HOCGHTON  AND  COMPANY. 


THE  EUROPEANS. 


A  NARROW  grave-yard  in  the  heart  of  a  bus- 
tling, indifferent  city,  seen  from  the  windows  of  a 
gloomy-looking  inn,  is  at  no  time  an  object  of  en- 
livening suggestion  ;  and  the  spectacle  is  not  at 
its  best  when  the  mouldy  tombstones  and  fune- 
real umbrage  have  received  the  ineffectual  refresh- 
ment of  a  dull,  moist  snow-fall.  If,  while  the  air 
is  thickened  by  this  frosty  drizzle,  the  calendar 
should  happen  to  indicate  that  the  blessed  vernal 
season  is  already  six  weeks  old,  it  will  be  admitted 
that  no  depressing  influence  is  absent  from  the 
scene.  This  fact  was  keenly  felt  on  a  certain  12th 
of  May,  upwards  of  thirty  years  since,  by  a  lady 
who  stood  looking  out  of  one  of  the  windows  of 
the  best  hotel  in  the  ancient  city  of  Boston.  She 
had  stood  there  for  half  an  hour  —  stood  there,  that 
is,  at  intervals ;  for  from  time  to  time  she  turned 
back  into  the  room  and  measured  its  length  with 
a  restless  step.  In  the  chimney-place  was  a  red- 


2  THE  EUROPEANS. 

hot  fire  which  emitted  a  small  blue  flame ;  and  in 
front  of  the  fire,  at  a  table,  sat  a  young  man  who 
was  busily  plying  a  pencil.  He  had  a  number  of 
sheets  of  paper  cut  into  small  equal  squares,  and 
he  was  apparently  covering  them  with  pictorial 
designs  —  strange-looking  figures.  He  worked 
rapidly  and  attentively,  sometimes  threw  back  his 
head  and  held  out  his  drawing  at  arm's-length,  and 
kept  up  a  soft,  gay-sounding  humming  and  whis- 
tling. The  lady  brushed  past  him  in  her  walk  ;  her 
much-trimmed  skirts  were  voluminous.  .She  never 
dropped  her  ejea  upon  his  work ;  she  only  turned 
them,  occasionally,  as  she  passed,  to  a  mirror  sus- 
pended above  the  toilet-table  on  the  other  side  of 
the  room.  Here  she  paused  a  moment,  gave  a 
pinch  to  her  waist  with  her  two  hands,  or  raised 
these  members  —  they  were  very  plump  and  pretty 
— to  the  multifold  braids  of  her  hair,  with  a  move- 
ment half  caressing,  half  corrective.  An  attentive 
observer  might  have  fancied  that  during  these  pe- 
riods of  desultory  self-inspection  her  face  forgot 
its  melancholy ;  but  as  soon  as  she  neared  the  win- 
dow again  it  began  to  proclaim  that  she  was  a  very 
ill-pleased  woman.  And  indeed,  in  what  met  her 
eyes  there  was  little  to  be  pleased  with.  The  win- 
dow-panes were  battered  by  the  sleet ;  the  head- 
stones in  the  grave-yard  beneath  seemed  to  be  hold- 
ing themselves  askance  to  keep  it  out  of  their  faces. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  8 

A  tall  iron  railing  protected  them  from  the  street, 
and  on  the  other  side  of  the  railing  an  assemblage 
of  Bostonians  were  trampling  about  in  the  liquid 
snow.  Many  of  them  were  looking  up  and  down  ; 
they  appeared  to  be  waiting  for  something.  From 
time  to  time  a  strange  vehicle  drew  near  to  the 
place  where  they  stood,  —  such  a  vehicle  as  the 
lady  at  the  window,  in  spite  of  a  considerable  ac- 
quaintance with  human  inventions,  had  never  seen 
before  :  a  huge,  low  omnibus,  painted  in  brilliant 
colors,  and  decorated  apparently  with  jangling 
bells,  attached  to  a  species  of  groove  in  the  pave- 
ment, through  which  it  was  dragged,  with  a  great 
deal  of  rumbling,  bouncing  and  scratching,  by 
a  couple  of  remarkably  small  horses.  When  it 
reached  a  certain  point  the  people  in  front  of  the 
grave-yard,  of  whom  much  the  greater  number 
were  women,  carrying  satchel  and  parcels,  pro- 
jected themselves  upon  it-  in  a  compact  body  —  a 
movement  suggesting  the  scramble  for  places  in  a 
life-boat  at  sea  —  and  were  engulfed  in  its  large  in- 
terior. Then  the  life-boat  —  or  the  life-car,  as  the 
lady  at  the  window  of  the  hotel  vaguely  designated 
it  —  went  bumping  and  jingling  away  upon  its  in- 
visible wheels,  with  the  helmsman  (the  man  at  the 
wheel)  guiding  its  course  incongruously  from  the 
prow.  This  phenomenon  was  repeated  every  three 
minutes,  and  the  supply  of  eagerly-moving  women 


4  THE  EUROPEANS. 

in  cloaks,  bearing  reticules  and  bundles,  renewed 
itself  in  the  most  liberal  manner.  On  the  other 
side  of  the  grave-yard  was  a  row  of  small  red 
brick  houses,  showing  a  series  of  homely,  domestic- 
looking  backs  ;  at  the  end  opposite  the  hotel  a  tall 
wooden  church-spire,  painted  white,  rose  high  into 
the  vagueness  of  the  snow-flakes.  The  lady  at  the 
window  looked  at  it  for  some  time  ;  for  reasons  of 
her  own  she  thought  it  the  ugliest  thing  she  had 
ever  seen.  She  hated  it,  she  despised  it ;  it  threw 
her  into  a  state  of  irritation  that  was  quite  out  of 
proportion  to  any  sensible  motive.  She  had  never 
known  herself  to  care  so  much  about  church-spires. 
She  was  not  pretty ;  but  even  when  it  expressed 
perplexed  irritation  her  face  was  most  interesting 
and  agreeable.  Neither  was  she  in  her  first  youth ; 
yet,  though  slender,  with  a  great  deal  of  extremely 
well-fashioned  roundness  of  contour  —  a  sugges- 
tion both  of  maturity  and  flexibility — she  carried 
her  three  and  thirty  years  as  a  light-wristed  Hebe 
might  have  carried  a  brimming  wine-cup.  Her 
complexion  was  fatigued,  as  the  French  say  ;  her 
mouth  was  large,  her  lips  too  full,  her  teeth  un- 
even, her  chin  rather  commonly  modeled;  she  had 
a  thick  nose,  and  when  she  smiled  —  she  was  con- 
stantly smiling  —  the  lines  beside  it  rose  too  high, 
toward  her  eyes.  But  these  eyes  were  charming  : 
gray  in  color,  brilliant,  quickly  glancing,  gently 


THE  EUROPEANS.  b 

resting,  full  of  intelligence.  Her  forehead  was 
very  low  —  it  was  her  only  handsome  feature ;  and 
she  had  a  great  abundance  of  crisp  dark  hairvfinely 
frizzled,  which  was  always  braided  in  a  manner 
that  suggested  some  Southern  or  Eastern,  some  re- 
motely foreign,  woman.  She  had  a  large  collec- 
tion of  ear-rings,  and  wore  them  in  alternation  ; 
and  they  seemed  to  give  a  point  to  her  Oriental  or 
exotic  aspect.  A  compliment  had  once  been  paid 
her,  which,  being  repeated  ,to  her,  gave  her  greater 
pleasure  than  anything  she  had  ever  heard.  "  A 
pretty  woman  ?  "  some  one  had  said.  "  Why,  her 
features  are  very  bad."  "  I  don't  know  about 
her  features,"  a  very  discerning  observer  had  an- 
swered ;  "  but  she  carries  her  head  like  a  pretty 
woman."  You  may  imagine  whether,  after  this, 
she  carried  her  head  less  becomingly. 

She  turned  away  from  the  window  at  last,  press- 
ing her  hands  to  her  eyes.  "It 's  too  horrible  !  " 
she  exclaimed.  "I  shall  go  back — I  shall  go 
back  !  "  And  she  flung  herself  into  a  chair  be- 
fore the  fire. 

"  Wait  a  little,  dear  child,"  said  the  young  man 
softly,  sketching  away  at  his  little  scraps  of  paper. 

The  lady  put  out  her  foot ;  it  was  very  small, 
and  there  was  an  immense  rosette  on  her  slipper. 
She  fixed  her  eyes  for  a  while  on  this  ornament, 
and  then  she  looked  at  the  glowing  bed  of  anthra- 


6  THE  EUROPEANS. 

cite  coal  in  the  grate.  "  Did  you  ever  see  anything 
so  hideous  as  that  fire  ?  "  she  demanded.  "  Did 
you  ever  see  anything  so  —  so  affreux  as  —  as 
everything  ?  "  She  spoke  English  with  perfect 
purity  ;  but  she  brought  out  this  French  epithet 
in  a  manner  that  indicated  that  she  was  accus- 
tomed to  using  French  epithets. 

"  I  think  the  fire  is  very  pretty,"  said  the  young 
man,  glancing  at  it  a  moment.  "  Those  little  blue 
tongues,  dancing  on  top  of  the  crimson  embers, 
are  extremely  picturesque.  They  are  like  a  fire 
in  an  alchemist's  laboratory." 

"  You  are  too  good-natured,  my  dear,"  his  com- 
panion declared. 

The  young  man  held  out  one  of  his  drawings, 
with  his  head  on  one  side.  His  tongue  was  gently 
moving  along  his  under-lip.  "Good-natured  — 
yes.  Too  good-natured  —  no." 

"  You  are  irritating,"  said  the  lady,  looking  at 
her  slipper. 

He  began  to  retouch  his  sketch.  "  I  think  you 
mean  simply  that  you  are  irritated." 

"  Ah,  for  that,  yes  !  "  said  his  companion,  with 
a  little  bitter  laugh.  "  It 's  the  darkest  day  of  my 
life  —  and  you  know  what  that  means." 

"  Wait  till  to-morrow,"  rejoined  the  young  man. 

"  Yes,  we  have  made  a  great  mistake.  If  there 
is  any  doubt  about  it  to-day,  there  certainly  will 
be  none  to-morrow.  Ce  sera  clair,  au  moins !  " 


TEE  EUROPEANS.  1 

The  young  man  was  silent  a  few  moments,  driv- 
ing his  pencil.  Then  at  last,  "  There  are  no  such 
things  as  mistakes,"  he  affirmed. 

"  Very  true  —  for  those  who  are  not  clever 
enough  to  perceive  them.  Not  to  recognize  one's 
mistakes  —  that  would  be  happiness  in  life,"  the 
lady  went  on,  still  looking  at  her  pretty  foot. 

44  My  dearest  sister,"  said  the  young  man,  al- 
ways intent  upon  his  drawing,  "  it 's  the  first  time 
you  have  told  me  I  am  not  clever." 

"  Well,  by  your  own  theory  I  can't  call  it  a  mis- 
take," answered  his  sister,  pertinently  enough. 

The  young  man  gave  a  clear,  fresh  laugh.  "  You, 
at  least,  are  clever  enough,  dearest  sister,"  he  said. 

"  I  was  not  so  when  I  proposed  this." 

"  Was  it  you  who  proposed  it  ? "  asked  her 
brother. 

She  turned  her  head  and  gave  him  a  little  stare. 
"  Do  you  desire  the  credit  of  it  ?  " 

"  If  you  like,  I  will  take  the  blame,"  he  said, 
looking  up  with  a  smile. 

"  Yes,"  she  rejoined  in  a  moment,  "  you  make 
no  difference  in  these  things  You  have  no  sense 
of  property." 

The  young  man  gave  his  joyous  laugh  again. 
"  If  that  means  I  have  no  property,  you  are 
right !  " 

"  Don't  joke  about  your  poverty,"  said  his  sis- 


8  THE  EUROPEANS 

ter.     "  That  is  quite  as  vulgar  as  to  boast  about 
it." 

"  My  poverty  !  I  have  just  finished  a  drawing 
that  will  bring  me  fifty  francs  !  " 

"  Voyons,"  said  the  lady,  putting  out  her  hand. 

He  added  a  touch  or  two,  and  then  gave  her  his 
sketch.  She  looked  at  it,  but  she  went  on  with 
her  idea  of  a  moment  before.  "  If  a  woman  were 
to  ask  you  to  marry  her  you  would  say,  '  Cer- 
tainly, my  dear,  with  pleasure  ! '  And  you  would 
marry  her  and  be  ridiculously  happy.  Then  at 
the  end  of  three  months  you  would  say  to  her, 
4  You  know  that  blissful  day  when  I  begged  you 
to  be  mine ! ' 

The  young  man  had  risen  from  the  table, 
stretching  his  arms  a  little;  he  walked  to  the 
window.  "That  is  a  description  of  a  charming 
nature,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  have  a  charming  nature ;  I  re- 
gard that  as  our  capital.  If  I  had  not  been  con- 
vinced of  that  I  should  never  have  taken  tjie  risk 
of  bringing  you  to  this  dreadful  country." 

"  This  comical  country,  this  delightful  coun- 
try !  "  exclaimed  the  young  man,  and  he  broke 
into  the  most  animated  laughter. 

"  Is  it  those  women  scrambling  into  the  omni- 
bus ?  "  asked  his  companion.  "  What  do  you  sup- 
pose is  the  attraction  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  9 

"I  suppose  there  is  a  very  good-looking  man 
inside,"  said  the  young  man. 

"  In  each  of  them  ?  They  come  along  in  hun- 
dreds, and  the  men  in  this  country  don't  seem  at 
all  handsome.  As  for  the  women  —  I  have  never 
seen  so  many  at  once  since  I  left  the  convent." 

"  The  women  are  very  pretty,"  her  brother  de- 
clared, "  and  the  whole  affair  is  very  amusing.  I 
must  make  a  sketch  of  it."  And  he  came  back  to 
the  table  quickly,  and  picked  up  his  utensils  —  a 
small  sketching-board,  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  three 
or  four  crayons.  He  took  his  place  at  the  window 
with  these  things,  and  stood  there  glancing  out, 
plying  his  pencil  with  an  air  of  easy  skill.  While 
he  worked  he  wore  a  brilliant  smile.  Brilliant  is 
indeed  the  word  at  this  moment  for  his  strongly- 
lighted  face.  He  was  eight  and  twenty  years  old  ; 
he  had  a  short,  slight,  well-made  figure.  Though  he 
bore  a  noticeable  resemblance  to  his  sister,  he  was 
a  better  favored  person  :  fair-haired,  clear-faced, 
witty-looking,  with  a  delicate  finish  of  feature  and 
an  expression  at  once  urbane  and  not  at  all  serious, 
a  warm  blue  eye,  an  eyebrow  finely  drawn  and  ex- 
cessively arched  —  an  eyebrow  which,  if  ladies 
wrote  sonnets  to  those  of  their  lovers,  might  have 
been  made  the  subject  of  such  a  piece  of  verse  — 
and  a  light  moustache  that  flourished  upwards  as 
if  blown  that  way  by  the  breath  of  a  constant 


10  THE  EUROPEANS. 

smile.  There  was  something  in  his  physiognomy 
at  once  benevolent  and  picturesque.  But,  as  I 
have  hinted,  it  was  not  at  all  serious.  The  young 
man's  face  was,  in  this  respect,  singular  ;  it  was 
not  at  all  serious,  and  yet  it  inspired  the  liveliest 
confidence. 

"  Be  sure  you  put  in  plenty  of  snow,"  said  his 
sister.  "  Bont£  divine,  what  a  climate  !  " 

"  I  shall  leave  the  sketch  all  white,  and  I  shall 
put  in  the  little  figures  in  black,"  the  young  man 
answered,  laughing.  u  And  I  shall  call  it  —  what 
is  that  line  in  Keats?  —Mid-May's  Eldest  Child! " 

"  I  don't  remember,"  said  the  lady,  "  that  mam- 
ma ever  told  me  it  was  like  this." 

"  Mamma  never  told  you  anything  disagreeable. 
And  it 's  not  like  this  —  every  day.  You  will  see 
that  to-morrow  we  shall  have  a  splendid  day." 

"  Qu'en  savez-vous  ?  To-morrow  I  shall  go 
away." 

"Where  shall  you  go?" 

"  Anywhere  away  from  here.  Back  to  Silber- 
stadt.  I  shall  write  to  the  Reigning  Prince." 

The  young  man  turned  a  little  and  looked  at 
her,  with  his  crayon  poised.  "  My  dear  Eugenia," 
he  murmured,  "  were  you  so  happy  at  sea  ?  " 

Eugenia  got  up  ;  she  still  held  in  her  hand  the 
drawing  her  brother  had  given  her.  It  was  a 
bold,  expressive  sketch  of  a  group  of  miserable 


THE  EUROPEANS.  11 

people  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer,  clinging  to- 
gether and  clutching  at  each  other,  while  the  ves- 
sel lurched  downward,  at  a  terrific  angle,  into  the 
hollow  of  a  wave.  It  was  extremely  clever,  and 
full  of  a  sort  of  tragi-comical  power.  Eugenia 
dropped  her  eyes  upon  it  and  made  a  sad  grimace. 
"  How  can  you  draw  such  odious  scenes  ? "  she 
asked.  "  I  should  like  to  throw  it  into  the  fire  !  " 
And  she  tossed  the  paper  away.  Her  brother 
watched,  quietly,  to  see  where  it  went.  It  flut- 
tered down  to  the  floor,  where  he  let  it  lie.  She 
came  toward  the  window,  pinching  in  her  waist. 
"  Why  don't  you  reproach  me  —  abuse  me  ?  "  she 
asked.  "  I  think  I  should  feel  better  then.  Why 
don't  you  tell  me  that  you  hate  me  for  bringing 
you  here  ?  " 

"  Because  you  would  not  believe  it.  I  adore 
you,  dear  sister !  I  am  delighted  to  be  here,  and 
I  am  charmed  with  the  prospect." 

"  I  don't  know  what  had  taken  possession  of 
me.  I  had  lost  my  head,"  Eugenia  went  on,. 

The  young  man,  on  his  side,  went  on  plying  his 
pencil.  "  It  is  evidently  a  most  curious  and  inter- 
esting country.  Here  we  are,  and  I  mean  to  en- 
joy  it." 

His  companion  turned  away  with  an  impatient 
step,  but  presently  came  back.  "  High  spirits  are 
doubtless  an  excellent  thing,"  she  said  ;  "  but  you 


12  THE  EUROPEANS. 

give  one  too  much  of  them,  and  I  can't  see  that 
they  have  done  you  any  good." 

The  young  man  stared,  with  lifted  eyebrows, 
smiling ;  he  tapped  his  handsome  nose  with  his 
pencil.  "  They  have  made  me  happy  !  " 

"  That  was  the  least  they  could  do  ;  they  have 
made  you  nothing  else.  You  have  gone  through 
life  thanking  fortune  for  such  very  small  favors 
that  she  has  never  put  herself  to  any  trouble  for 
you." 

"  She  must  have  put  herself  to  a  little,  I  think, 
to  present  me  with  so  admirable  a  sister." 

"  Be  serious,  Felix.  You  forget  that  I  am  your 
elder." 

"  With  a  sister,  then,  so  elderly !  "  rejoined  Fe- 
lix, laughing.  "  I  hoped  we  had  left  seriousness  in 
Europe." 

"  I.  fancy  you  will  find  it  here.  Remember 
that  you  are  nearly  thirty  years  old,  and  that  you 
are  nothing  but  an  obscure  Bohemian  —  a  penni- 
less correspondent  of  an  illustrated  newspaper." 

"  Obscure  as  much  as  you  please,  but  not  so 
much  of  a  Bohemian  as  you  think.  And  not  at 
all  penniless  !  I  have  a  hundred  pounds  in  my 
pocket.  I  have  an  engagement  to  make  fifty 
sketches,  and  I  mean  to  paint  the  portraits  of  all 
our  cousins,  and  of  all  their  cousins,  at  a  hundred 
dollars  a  head." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  13 

"  You  are  not  ambitious,"  said  Eugenia. 

"  You  are,  dear  Baroness,"  the  young  man  re- 
plied. 

The  Baroness  was  silent  a  moment,  looking  out 
at  the  sleet-darkened  grave-yard  and  the  bumping 
horse-cars.  "  Yes,  I  am  ambitious,"  she  said  at 
last.  ."  And  my  ambition  has  brought  me  to  this 
dreadful  place !  "  She  glanced  about  her  —  the 
room  had  a  certain  vulgur  nudity  ;  the  bed  and  the 
window  were  curtainless  —  and  she  gave  a  little 
passionate  sigh.  "  Poor  old  ambition  !  "  she  ex- 
claimed. Then  she  flung  herself  down  upon  a  sofa 
which  stood  near  against  the  wall,  and  covered  her 
face  with  her  hands. 

Her  brother  went  on  with  his  drawing,  rapidly 
and  skillfully  ;  after  some  moments  he  sat  down 
beside  her  and  showed  her  his  sketch.  "  Now, 
don't  you  think  that 's  pretty  good  for  an  obscure 
Bohemian  ?  "  he  asked.  "  I  have  knocked  off  an- 
other fifty  francs." 

Eugenia  glanced  at  the  little  picture  as  he  laid 
it  on  her  lap.  "  Yes,  it  is  very  clever,"  she  said. 
And  in  a  moment  she  added,  "Do  you  suppose 
our  cousins  do  that  ?  " 

"  Do  what  ?  " 

"  Get  into  those  things,  and  look  like  that." 

Felix  meditated  awhile.  "  I  really  can't  say. 
It  will  be  interesting  to  discover." 


14  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Oh,  the  rich  people  can't !  "  said  the  Baron- 
ess. 

,"  Are  you  very  sure  they  are  rich  ?  "  asked  Fe- 
lix, lightly. 

His  sister  slowly  turned  in  her  place,  looking  at 
him.  "  Heavenly  powers  !  "  she  murmured.  "  You 
have  a  way  of  bringing  out  things  !  " 

"  It  will  certainly  be  much  pleasanter  if  they 
are  rich,"  Felix  declared. 

"  Do  you  suppose  if  I  had  not  known  they  were 
rich  I  would  ever  have  come  ?  " 

The  young  man  met  his  sister's  somewhat  per- 
emptory eye  with  his  bright,  contented  glance. 
"Yes,  it  certainly  will  be  pleasanter," he  repeated. 

"  That  is  all  I  expect  of  them,"  said  the  Baron- 
ess. "  I  don't  count  upon  their  being  clever  or 
friendly  —  at  first  —  or  elegant  or  interesting. 
But  I  assure  you  I  insist  upon  their  being  rich." 

Felix  leaned  his  head  upon  the  back  of  the  sofa 
and  looked  awhile  at  the  oblong  patch  of  sky  to 
which  the  window  served  as  frame.  The  snow 
was  ceasing ;  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  sky  had 
begun  to  brighten.  "I  count  upon  their  being 
rich,"  he  said  at  last,  "  and  powerful,  and  clever, 
and  friendly,  and  elegant,  and  interesting,  and 
generally  delightful !  Tu  vas  voir."  And  he  bent 
forward  and  kissed  his  sister.  "  Look  there !  "  he 
went  on.  "  As  a  portent,  even  while  I  speak,  the 


THE  EUROPEANS.  15 

8ky  is  turning  the  color  of  gold ;  the  day  is  going 
to  be  splendid." 

And  indeed,  within  five  minutes  the  weather 
had  changed.  The  sun  broke  out  through  the 
snow-clouds  and  jumped  into  the  Baroness's  room. 
"  Bonte*  divine,"  exclaimed  this  lady,  "  what  a 
climate !  " 

"  We  will  go  out  and  see  the  world,"  said  Felix. 

And  after  a  while  they  went  out.  The  air  had 
grown  warm  as  well  as  brilliant ;  the  sunshine 
had  dried  the  pavements.  They  walked  about 
the  streets  at  hazard,  looking  at  the  people  and 
the  houses,  the  shops  and  the  vehicles,  the  blazing 
blue  sky  and  the  muddy  crossings,  the  hurrying 
men  and  the  slow-strolling  maidens,  the  fresh  red 
bricks  and  the  bright  green  trees,  the  extraordi- 
nary mixture  of  smartness  and  shabbiness.  From 
one  hour  to  another  the  day  had  grown  vernal ; 
even  in  the  bustling  streets  there  was  an  odor  of 
earth  and  blossom.  Felix  was  immensely  enter- 
tained. He  had  called  it  a  comical  country,  and 
he  went  about  laughing  at  everything  he  saw. 
You  would  have  said  that  American  civilization 
expressed  itself  to  his  sense  in  a  tissue  of  capital 
jokes.  The  jokes  were  certainly  excellent,  and  the 
young  man's  merriment  was  joyous  and  genial. 
He  possessed  what  is  called  the  pictorial  sense ;  and 
this  first  glimpse  of  democratic  manners  stirred 


16  THE  EUROPEANS. 

the  same  sort  of  attention  that  he  would  have 
given  to  the  movements  of  a  lively  young  person 
with  a  bright  complexion.  Such  attention  would 
have  been  demonstrative  and  complimentary ;  and 
in  the  present  case  Felix  might  have  passed  for  an 
undispirited  young  exile  revisiting  the  haunts  of 
his  childhood.  He  kept  looking  at  the  violent 
blue  of  the  sky,  at  the  scintillating  air,  at  the  scat- 
tered and  multiplied  patches  of  color. 

"  Comme  c'est  bariole,  eh  ?  "  he  said  to  his  sis- 
ter in  that  foreign  tongue  which  they  both  ap- 
peared to  feel  a  mysterious  prompting  occasionally 
to  use. 

"  Yes,  it  is  bariole*  indeed,"  the  Baroness  an- 
swered. "  I  don't  like  the  coloring  ;  it  hurts  my 
eyes." 

"  It  shows  how  extremes  meet,"  the  young  man 
rejoined.  "Instead  of  coming  to  the  West  we 
seem  to  have  gone  to  the  East.  The  way  the  sky 
touches  the  house-tops  is  just  like  Cairo ;  and  the 
red  and  blue  sign-boards  patched  over  the  face 
of  everything  remind  one  of  Mahometan  decora- 
tions." 

"  The  young  women  are  not  Mahometan,"  said 
his  companion.  "  They  can't  be  said  to  hide  their 
faces.  I  never  saw  anything  so  bold." 

"  Thank  Heaven  they  don't  hide  their  faces  !  " 
cried  Felix.  "  Their  faces  are  uncommonly  pretty." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  17 

41  Yes,  their  faces  are  often  very  pretty,"  said 
the  Baroness,  who  was  a  very  clever  woman.  She 
was  too  clever  a  woman  not  to  be  capable  of  a 
great  deal  of  just  and  fine  observation.  She  clung 
more  closely  than  usual  to  her  brother's  arm ;  she 
was  not  exhilarated,  as  he  was ;  she  said  very  little, 
but  she  noted  a  great  many  things  and  made  her 
reflections.  She  was  a  little  excited ;  she  felt  that 
she  had  indeed  come  to  a  strange  country,  to  make 
her  fortune.  Superficially,  she  was  conscious  of  a 
good  deal  of  irritation  and  displeasure ;  the  Bar- 
oness was  a  very  delicate  and  fastidious  person. 
Of  old,  more  than  once,  she  had  gone,  for  enter- 
tainment's sake  and  in  brilliant  company,  to  a  fair 
•in  a  provincial  town.  It  seemed  to  her  now  that 
she  was  at  an  enormous  fair  —  that  the  entertain- 
ment and  the  desagrgments  were  very  much  the 
same.  She  found  herself  alternately  smiling  and 
shrinking  ;  the  show  was  very  curious,  but  it  was 
probable,  from  moment  to  moment,  that  one  would 
be  jostled.  The  Baroness  had  never  seen  so  many 
people  walking  about  before ;  she  had  never  been 
so  mixed  up  with  people  she  did  not  know.  But 
little  by  little  she  felt  that  this  fair  was  a  more 
serious  undertaking.  She  went  with  her  brother 
into  a  large  public  garden,  which  seemed  very 
pretty,  but  where  she  was  surprised  at  seeing  no 
carriages.  The  afternoon  was  drawing  to  a  close  ; 
2 


18  THE  EUROPEANS. 

the  coarse,  vivid  grass  and  the  slender  tree-boles 
were  gilded  by  the  level  sunbeams  —  gilded  as  with 
gold  that  was  fresh  from  the  'mine.  It  was  the 
hour  at  which  ladies  should  come  but  for  an  airing 
and  roll  past  a  hedge  of  pedestrians,  holding  their 
parasols  askance.  Here,  however,  Eugenia  ob- 
served no  indications  of  this  custom,  the  absence 
of  which  was  more  anomalous  as  there  was  a 
charming  avenue  of  remarkably  graceful,  arching 
elms  in  the  most  convenient  contiguity  to  a  large, 
cheerful  street,  in  which,  evidently,  among  the 
more  prosperous  members  of  the  bourgeoisie,  a 
great  deal  of  pedestrianism  went  forward.  Our 
friends  passed  out  into  this  well  lighted  prome- 
nade, and  Felix  noticed  a  great  many  more  pretty 
girls  and  called  his  sister's  attention  to  them.  This 
latter  measure,  however,  was  superfluous  ;  for  the 
Baroness  had  inspected,  narrowly,  these  charming 
young  ladies. 

"  I  feel  an  intimate  conviction  that  our  cousins 
are  like  that,"  said  Felix. 

The  Baroness  hoped  so,  but  this  is  not  what  she 
said.  "  They  are  very  pretty,"  she  said,  "  but 
they  are  mere  little  girls.  Where  are  the  women 
—  the  women  of  thirty  ?  " 

"  Of  thirty-three,  do  you  mean  ?  "  her  brother 
was  going  to  ask;  for  he  understood  often  both 
what  she  said  and  what  she  did  not  say.  But  he 


THE  EUROPEANS.  19 

only  exclaimed  upon  the  beauty  of  the  sunset, 
while  the  Baroness,  who  had  come  to  seek  her  fort- 
une, reflected  that  it  would  certainly  be  well  for 
her  if  the  persons  against  whom  she  might  need 
to  measure  herself  should  all  be  mere  little  girls. 
The  sunset  was  superb ;  they  stopped  to  look  at 
it ;  Felix  declared  that  he  had  never  seen  such  a 
gorgeous  mixture  of  colors.  The  Baroness  also 
thought  it  splendid;  and  she  was  perhaps  the  more 
easily  pleased  from  the  fact  that  while  she  stood 
there  she  was  conscious  of  much  admiring  obser- 
vation on  the  part  of  various  nice-looking  people 
who  passed  that  way,  and  to  whom  a  distinguished, 
strikingly-dressed  woman  with  a  foreign  air,  ex- 
claiming upon  the  beauties  of  nature  on  a  Boston 
street  corner  in  the  French  tongue,  could  not  be  an 
object  of  indifference.  Eugenia's  spirits  rose.  She 
surrendered  herself  to  a  certain  tranquil  gayety. 
If  she  had  come  to  seek  her  fortune,  it  seemed  to 
her  that  her  fortune  would  be  easy  to  find.  There 
was  a  promise  of  it  in  the  gorgeous  purity  of  the 
western  sky  ;  there  was  an  intimation  in  the  mild, 
unimpertinent  gaze  of  the  passers  of  a  certain  nat- 
ural facility  in  things. 

"  You  will  not  go  back  to  Silberstadt,  eh  ?  " 
asked  Felix. 

"  Not  to-morrow,"  said  the  Baroness. 

"  Nor  write  to  the  Reigning  Prince  ?  " 


20  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  I  shall  write  to  him  that  they  evidently  know 
nothing  about  him  over  here." 

"  He  will  not  believe  you,"  said  the  young  man. 
"I  advise  you  to  let  him  alone." 

Felix  himself  continued  to  be  in  high  good  hu- 
mor. Brought  up  among  ancient  customs  and  in 
picturesque  cities,  he  yet  found  plenty  of  local 
color  in  the  little  Puritan  metropolis.  That  even- 
ing, after  dinner,  he  told  his  sister  that  he  should 
go  forth  early  on  the  morrow  to  look  up  their  cous- 
ins. 

"  You  are  very  impatient,"  said  Eugenia. 

"  What  can  be  more  natural,"  he  asked,  "after 
seeing  all  those  pretty  girls  to-day  ?  If  one's  cous- 
ins are  of  that  pattern,  the  sooner  one  knows  them 
the  better." 

"Perhaps  they  are  not,"  said  Eugenia.  "We 
ought  to  have  brought  some  letters  —  to  some 
other  people." 

"  The  other  people  would  not  be  our  kinsfolk." 

"Possibly  they  would  be  none  the  worse  for 
that,"  the  Baroness  replied. 

Her  brother  looked  at  her  with  his  eyebrows 
lifted.  "  That  was  not  what  you  said  when  you 
first  proposed  to  me  that  we  should  come  out  here 
and  fraternize  with  our  relatives.  You  said  that 
it  was  the  prompting  of  natural  affection;  and 
when  I  suggested  some  reasons  against  it  you 


THE  EUROPEANS.  21 

declared  that  the  voix  du  sang  should  go  before 
everything." 

"  You  remember  all  that  ?  "  asked  the  Baroness. 

"Vividly  !     I  was  greatly  moved  by  it." 

She  was  walking  up  and  down  the  room,  as  she 
had  done  in  the  morning  ;  she  stopped  in  her  walk 
and  looked  at  her  brother.  She  apparently  was 
going  to  say  something,  but  she  checked  herself 
and  resumed  her  walk.  Then,  in  a  few  moments, 
she  said  something  different,  which  had  the  effect 
of  an  explanation  of  the  suppression  of  her  earlier 
thought.  "  You  will  never  be  anything  but  a 
child,  dear  brother." 

"  One  would  suppose  that  you,  madam,"  an- 
swered Felix,  laughing,  "  were  a  thousand  years 
old." 

"  I  am  —  sometimes,"  said  the  Baroness. 

"  I  will  go,  then,  and  announce  to  our  cousins 
the  arrival  of  a  personage  so  extraordinary.  They 
will  immediately  come  and  pay  you  their  respects." 

Eugenia  paced  the  length  of  the  room  again, 
and  then  she  stopped  before  her  brother,  laying 
her  hand  upon  his  arm.  "  They  are  not  to  come 
and  see  me,"  she  said.  "  You  are  not  to  allow 
that.  That  is  not  the  way  I  shall  meet  them  first." 
And  in  answer  to  his  interrogative  glance  she  went 
on.  "You  will  go  and  examine,  and  report.  You 
will  come  back  and  tell  me  who  they  are  and  what 


22  THE  EUROPEANS. 

they  are ;  their  number,  gender,  their  respective 
ages  —  all  about  them.  Be  sure  you  observe 
everything ;  be  ready  to  describe  to  me  the  local- 
ity, the  accessories  —  how  shall  I  say  it  ?  —  the 
mise  en  sc&ne.  Then,  at  my  own  time,  at  my  own 
hour,  under  circumstances  of  my  own  choosing,  I 
will  go  to  them.  I  will  present  myself  —  I  will 
appear  before  them  !  "  said  the  Baroness,  this  time 
phrasing  her  idea  with  a  certain  frankness. 

"  And  what  message  am  I  to  take  to  them  ?  " 
asked  Felix,  who  had  a  lively  faith  in  the  justness 
of  his  sister's  arrangements. 

She  looked  at  him  a  moment  —  at  his  expression 
of  agreeable  veracity ;  and,  with  that  justness  that 
he  admired,  she  replied,  "  Say  what  you  please. 
Tell  my  story  in  the  way  that  -seems  to  you  most 
—  natural."  And  she  bent  her  forehead  for  him 
to  kiss. 


II. 

THE  next  day  was  splendid,  as  Felix  had  proph- 
esied ;  if  the  winter  had  suddenly  leaped  into 
spring,  the  spring  had  for  the  moment  as  quickly 
leaped  into  summer.  This  was  an  observation 
made  by  a  young  girl  who  came  out  of  a  large 
square  house  in  the  country,  and  strolled  about 
in  the  spacious  garden  which  separated  it  from  a 
muddy  road.  The  flowering  shrubs  and  the  neatly- 
disposed  plants  were  basking  in  the  abundant  light 
and  warmth ;  the  transparent  shade  of  the  great 
elms  —  they  were  magnificent  trees  —  seemed  to 
thicken  by  the  hour  ;  and  the  intensely  habitual 
stillness  offered  a  submissive  medium  to  the  sound 
of  a  distant  church-bell.  The  young  girl  listened 
to  the  church-bell ;  but  she  was  not  dressed  for 
church.  She  was  bare-headed  ;  she  wore  a  white 
muslin  waist,  with  an  embroidered  border,  and  the 
skirt  of  her  dress  was  of  colored  muslin.  She  was 
a  young  lady  of  some  two  or  three  and  twenty 
years  of  age,  and  though  a  young  person  of  her 
sex  walking  bare-headed  in  a  garden,  of  a  Sun- 
day morning  in  spring-time,  can,  in  the  nature 


24  THE  EUROPEANS. 

of  things,  never  be  a  displeasing  object,  you 
would  not  have  pronounced  this  innocent  Sab- 
bath-breaker especially  pretty.  She  was  tall  and 
pale,  thin  and  a  little  awkward ;  her  hair  was  fair 
and  perfectly  straight ;  her  eyes  were  dark,  and 
they  had  the  singularity  of  seeming  at  once  dull 
and  restless  —  differing  herein,  as  you  see,  fatally 
from  the  ideal  "  fine  eyes,"  which  we  always  im- 
agine to  be  both  brilliant  and  tranquil.  The  doors 
and  windows  of  the  large  square  house  were  all 
wide  open,  to  admit  the  purifying  sunshine,  which 
lay  in  generous  patches  upon  the  floor  of  a  wide, 
high,  covered  piazza  adjusted  to  two  sides  of  the 
mansion  —  a  piazza  on  which  several  straw-bot- 
tomed rocking-chairs  and  half  a  dozen  of  those 
small  cylindrical  stools  in  green  and  blue  porce- 
lain, which  suggest  an  affiliation  between  the  resi- 
dents and  the  Eastern  trade,  were  symmetrically 
disposed.  It  was  an  ancient  house  —  ancient  in 
the  sense  of  being  eighty  years  old ;  it  was  built 
of  wood,  painted  a  clean,  clear,  faded  gray,  and 
adorned  along  the  front,  at  intervals,  with  flat 
wooden  pilasters,  painted  white.  These  pilasters 
appeared  to  support  a  kind  of  classic  pediment, 
which  was  decorated  in  the  middle  by  a  large 
triple  window  in  a  boldly  carved  frame,  and  in 
each  of  its  smaller  angles"  by  a  glazed  circular  aper- 
ture. A  large  white  door,  furnished  with  a  highly- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  25 

polished  brass  knocker,  presented  itself  to  the  ru- 
ral-looking road,  with  which  it  was  connected  by 
a  spacious  pathway,  paved  with  worn  and  cracked, 
but  very  clean,  bricks.  Behind  it  there  were 
meadows  and  orchards,  a  barn  and  a  pond  ;  and 
facing  it,  a  short  distance  along  the  road,  on  the 
opposite  side,  stood  a  smaller  house,  painted  white, 
with  external  shutters  painted  green,  a  little  gar- 
den on  one  hand  and  an  orchard  on  the  other. 
All  this  was  shining  in  the  morning  air,  through 
which  the  simple  details  of  the  picture  addressed 
themselves  to  the  eye  as  distinctly  as  the  items  of 
a  "  sum  "  in  addition. 

A  second  young  lady  presently  came  out  of  the 
house,  across  the  piazza,  descended  into  the  garden 
and  approached  the  young  girl  of  whom  I  have 
spoken.  This  second  young  lady  was  also  thin  and 
pale  ;  but  she  was  older  than  the  other  ;  she  was 
shorter ;  she  had  dark,  smooth  hair.  Her  eyes, 
unlike  the  other's,  were  quick  and  bright ;  but 
they  were  not  at  all  restless.  She  wore  a  straw 
bonnet  with  white  ribbons,  and  a  long,  red,  India 
scarf,  which,  on  the  front  of  her  dress,  reached  to 
her  feet.  In  her  hand  she  carried  a  little  key. 

"  Gertrude,"  she  said,  "  are  you  very  sure  you 
had  better  not  go  to  church  ?  " 

Gertrude  looked  at  her  a  moment,  plucked  a 
small  sprig  from  a  lilac-bush,  smelled  it  and  threw 


26  THE  EUROPEANS. 

it  away.  "  I  am  not  very  sure  of  anything  !  "  she 
answered. 

The  other  young  lady  looked  straight  past  her, 
at  the  distant  pond,  which  lay  shining  between  the 
long  banks  of  fir-trees.  Then  she  said  in  a  very 
soft  voice,  "This  is  the  key  of  the  dining-room 
closet.  I  think  you  had  better  have  it,  if  any  one 
should  want  anything." 

"  Who  is  there  to  want  anything  ?  "  Gertrude 
demanded:  "  I  shall  be  all  alone  in  the  house." 

"  Some  one  may  come,"  said  her  companion. 

"  Do  you  mean  Mr.  Brand  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Gertrude.    He  may  like  a  piece  of  cake." 

"I  don't  like  men  that  are  always  eating  cake !  " 
Gertrude  declared,  giving  a  pull  at  the  lilac-bush. 

Her  companion  glanced  at  her,  and  then  looked 
down  on  the  ground.  "  I  think  father  expected 
you  would  come  to  church,"  she  said.  "  What 
shall  I  say  to  him  ?  " 

"  Say  I  have  a  bad  headache." 

"  Would  that  be  true  ?  "  asked  the  elder  lady, 
looking  straight  at  the  pond  again. 

"  No,  Charlotte,"  said  the  younger  one  simply. 

Charlotte  transferred  her  quiet  eyes  to  her  com- 
panion's face.  "  I  am  afraid  you  are  feeling  rest- 


"I  am  feeling  as  I  always  feel,"  Gertrude  re- 
plied, in  the  same  tone. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  27 

Charlotte  turned  away ;  but  she  stood  there  a 
moment.  Presently  she  looked  down  at  the  front 
of  her  dress.  "  Does  n't  it  seem  to  you,  somehow, 
as  if  my  scarf  were  too  long  ?  "  she  asked. 

Gertrude  walked  half  round  her,  looking  at  the 
scarf.  "  I  don't  think  you  wear  it  right,"  she  said. 

"  How  should  I  wear  it,  dear  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know ;  differently  from  that.  You 
should  draw  it  differently  over  your  shoulders, 
round  your  elbows  ;  you  should  look  differently 
behind." 

"  How  should  I  look  ?  "  Charlotte  inquired. 

"  I  don't  think  I  can  tell  you,"  said  Gertrude, 
plucking  out  the  scarf  a  little  behind.  "  I  could 
do  it  myself,  but  I  don't  think  I  can  explain  it." 

Charlotte,  by  a  movement  of  her  elbows,  cor- 
rected the  laxity  that  had  come  from  her  compan- 
ion's touch.  "  Well,  some  day  you  must  do  it  for 
me.  It  does  n't  matter  now.  Indeed,  I  don't  think 
it  matters,"  she  added,  "  how  one  looks  behind." 

u  I  should  say  it  mattered  more,"  said  Gertrude. 
"  Then  you  don't  know  who  may  be  observing  you. 
You  are  not  on  your  guard.  You  can't  try  to  look 
pretty." 

Charlotte  received  this  declaration  with  extreme 
gravity.  "  I  don't  think  one  should  ever  try  to 
look  pretty,"  she  rejoined,  earnestly. 

Her  companion  was  silent.  Then  she  said, 
'"  Well,  perhaps  it 's  not  of  much  use." 


28  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Charlotte  looked  at  her  a  little,  and  then  kissed 
her.  "  I  hope  you  will  be  better  when  we  come 
back." 

"  My  dear  sister,- 1  am  very  well !  "  said  Ger- 
trude. 

Charlotte  went  down  the  large  brick  walk  to 
the  garden  gate  ;  her  companion  strolled  slowly 
toward  the  house.  At  the  gate  Charlotte  met  a 
young  man,  who  was  coming  in  • —  a  tall,  fair  young 
man,  wearing  a  high  hat  and  a  pair  of  thread 
gloves.  He  was  handsome,  but  rather  too  stout. 
He  had  a  pleasant  smile.  "  Oh,  Mr.  Brand !  " 
exclaimed  the  young  lady. 

44 1  came  to  see  whether  your  sister  was  not  go- 
ing to  church,"  said  the  young  man. 

"  She  says  she  is  not  going  ;  but  I  am  very  glad 
you  have  come.  I  think  if  you  were  to  talk  to  her 
a  little  "  .  .  .  .  And  Charlotte  lowered  her  voice. 
"  It  seems  as  if  she  were  restless." 

Mr.  Brand  smiled  down  on  the  young  lady  from 
his  great  height.  "  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  talk 
to  her.  For  that  I  should  be  willing  to  absent 
myself  from  almost  any  occasion  of  worship,  how- 
ever attractive." 

"  Well,  I  suppose  you  know,"   said  Charlotte, 
softly,  as  if  positive  acceptance  of  this  proposition  „ 
might  be  dangerous.     "  But  I  am  afraid  I  shall  be 
late." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  29 

"  I  hope  you  will  have  a  pleasant  sermon,"  said 
the  young  man. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Gilman  is  always  pleasant,"  Char- 
lotte answered.  And  she  went  on  her  way. 

Mr.  Brand  went  into  the  garden,  where  Ger- 
trude, hearing  the  gate  close  behind  him,  turned 
and  looked  at  him.  For  a  moment  she  watched 
him  coming ;  then  she  turned  away.  But  almost 
immediately  she  corrected  this  movement,  and 
stood  still,  facing  him.  He  took  off  his  hat  and 
wiped  his  forehead  as  he  approached.  Then  he 
put  on  his  hat  again  and  held  out  his  hand.  His 
hat  being  removed,  you  would  have  perceived  that 
his  forehead  was  very  large  and  smooth,  and  his 
hair  abundant  but  rather  colorless.  His  nose  was 
too  large,  and  his  mouth  and  eyes  were  too  small ; 
but  for  all  this  he  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  young 
man  of  striking  appearance.  The  expression  of  his 
little  clean-colored  blue  eyes  was  irresistibly  gen- 
tle and  serious ;  he  looked,  as  the  phrase  is,  as  good 
as  gold.  The  young  girl,  standing  in  the  garden 
path,  glanced,  as  he  came  up,  at  his  thread  gloves. 

"  I  hoped  you  were  going  to  church,"  he  said. 
"  I  wanted  to  walk  with  you." 

"  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you,"  Gertrude 
answered.  "  I  am  not  going  to  church." 

She  had  shaken  hands  with  him ;  he  held  her 
hand  a  moment.  "  Have  you  any  special  reason 
for  not  going?  " 


30  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Brand,"  said  the  young  girl. 

"  May  I  ask  what  it  is  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  smiling ;  and  in  her  smile,  as 
I  have  intimated,  there  was  a  certain  dullness. 
But  mingled  with  this  dullness  was  something 
sweet  and  suggestive.  "  Because  the  sky  is  so 
blue  !  "  she  said. 

He  looked  at  the  sky,  which  was  magnificent, 
and  then  said,  smiling  too,  "  I  have  heard  of  young 
ladies  staying  at  home  for  bad  weather,  but  never 
for  good.  Your  sister,  whom  I  met  at  the  gate, 
tells  me  you  are  depressed,"  he  added. 

"  Depressed  ?     I  am  never  depressed." 

"  Oh,  surely,  sometimes,"  replied  Mr.  Brand,  as 
if  he  thought  this  a  regrettable  account  of  one's 
self. 

"I  am  never  depressed,"  Gertrude  repeated. 
"  But  I  am  sometimes  wicked.  When  I  am 
wicked  I  am  in  high  spirits.  I  was  wicked  just 
now  to  my  sister." 

"  What  did  you  do  to  her  ?  " 

"  I  said  things  that  puzzled  her  —  on  purpose." 

"  Why  did  you  do  that,  Miss  Gertrude  ?  "  asked 
the  young  man. 

She  began  to  smile  again.  "  Because  the  sky  is 
so  blue ! " 

"  You  say  things  that  puzzle  me"  Mr.  Brand 
declared. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  31 

"  I  always  know  when  I  do  it,"  proceeded  Ger- 
trude. "  But  people  puzzle  me  more,  I  think. 
And  they  don't  seem  to  know !  " 

"  This  is  very  interesting,"  Mr.  Brand  observed, 
smiling. 

"  You  told  me  to  tell  you  about  my  —  my  strug- 
gles," the  young  girl  went  on. 

"Let  us  talk  about  them.  I  have  so  many 
things  to  say." 

Gertrude  turned  away  a  moment ;  and  then, 
turning  backx  "  You  had  better  go  to  church,"  she 
said. 

"  You  know,"  the  young  man  urged,  "  that  I 
have  always  one  thing  to  say." 

Gertrude  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "  Please 
don't  say  it  now  !  " 

"  We  are  all  alone,"  he  continued,  taking  off 
his  hat ;  "  all  alone  in  this  beautiful  Sunday  still- 
ness." 

Gertrude  looked  around  her,  at  the  breaking 
buds,  the  shining  distance,  the  blue  sky  to  which 
she  had  referred  as  a  pretext  for  her  irregularities. 
"  That 's  the  reason,"  she  said,  "  why  I  don't  want 
you  to  speak.  Do  me  a  favor  ;  go  to  church." 

"  May  I  speak  when  I  come  back  ?  "  asked  Mr. 
Brand. 

"  If  you  are  still  disposed,"  she  answered. 
"  I  don't  know  whether  you  are   wicked,"  he 
said,  "  but  you  are  certainly  puzzling." 


32  THE  EUROPEANS. 

She  had  turned  away ;  she  raised  her  hands  to 
her  ears.  He  looked  at  her  a  moment,  and  then 
he  slowly  walked  to  church. 

She  wandered  for  a  while  about  the  garden, 
vaguely  and  without  purpose.  The  church-bell 
had  stopped  ringing  ;  the  stillness  was  complete. 
This  young  lady  relished  highly,  on  occasions,  the 
sense  of  being  alone  —  the  absence  of  the  whole 
family  and  the  emptiness  of  the  house.  To-day, 
apparently,  the  servants  had  also  gone  to  church ; 
there  was  never  a  figure  at  the  open  windows ;  be- 
hind the  house  there  was  no  stout  negress  in  a  red 
turban,  lowering  the  bucket  into  the  great  shingle- 
hooded  well.  And  the  front  door  of  the  big,  un- 
guarded home  stood  open,  with  the  trustfulness  of 
the  golden  age ;  or  what  is  more  to  the  purpose, 
with  that  of  New  England's  silvery  prime.  Ger- 
trude slowly  passed  through  it,  and  went  from  one 
of  the  empty  rooms  to  the  other  —  large,  clear- 
colored  rooms,  with  white  wainscots,  ornamented 
with  thin-legged  mahogany  furniture,  and,  on  the 
walls,  with  old-fashioned  engravings,  chiefly  of 
scriptural  subjects,  hung  very  high.  This  agree- 
able sense  of  solitude,  of  having  the  house  to  her- 
self, of  which  I  have  spoken,  always  excited  Ger- 
trude's imagination  ;  she  could  not  have  told  you 
why,  and  neither  can  her  humble  historian.  It 
always  seemed  to  her  that  she  must  do  something 


THE  EUROPEANS.  33 

particular  —  that  she  must  honor  the  occasion ;  and 
while  she  roamed  about,  wondering  what  she  could 
do,  the  occasion  usually  came  to  an  end.  To-day 
she  wondered  more  than  ever.  At  last  she  took 
down  a  book  ;  there  was  no  library  in  the  house, 
but  there  were  books  in  all  the  rooms.  None  of 
them  were  forbidden  books,  and  Gertrude  had  not 
stopped  at  home  for  the  sake  of  a  chance  to  climb 
to  the  inaccessible  shelves.  She  possessed  herself 
of  a  very  obvious  volume  —  one  of  the  series  of 
the  Arabian  Nights  —  and  she  brought  it  out  into 
the  portico  and  sat  down  with  it  in  her  lap.  There, 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  she  read  the  history  of 
the  loves  of  the  Prince  Camaralzaman  and  the 
Princess  Badoura.  At  last,  looking  up,  she  be- 
held, as  it  seemed  to  her,  the  Prince  Camaralza- 
man standing  before  her.  A  beautiful  young  man 
was  making  her  a  very  low  bow  —  a  magnificent 
bow,  such  as  she  had  never  seen  before.  He  ap- 
peared to  have  dropped  from  the  clouds ;  he  was 
wonderfully  handsome  ;  he  smiled  —  smiled  as  if 
he  were  smiling  on  purpose.  Extreme  surprise, 
for  a  moment,  kept  Gertrude  sitting  still ;  then  she 
rose,  without  even  keeping  her  finger  in  her  book. 
The  young  man,  with  his  hat  in  his  hand,  still 
looked  at  her,  smiling  and  smiling.  It  was  very 
strange. 

"  Will  you  kindly  tell  me,"  said  the  mysterious 


34  THE  EUROPEANS. 

visitor,  at  last,  "  whether  I  have  the  honor  of 
speaking  to  Miss  Went  worth  ?  " 

"  My  name  is  Gertrude  Wentworth,"  murmured 
the  young  woman. 

"  Then  —  then  —  I  have  the  honor  —  the  pleas- 
ure —  of  being  your  cousin." 

The  young  man  had  so  much  the  character  of  an 
apparition  that  this  announcement  seemed  to  com- 
plete his  unreality.  "  What  cousin  ?  Who  are 
you  ?  "  said  Gertrude. 

He  stepped  back  a  few  paces  and  looked  up  at 
the  house ;  then  glanced  round  him  at  the  garden 
and  the  distant  view.  After  this  he  burst  out 
laughing.  "  I  see  it  must  seem  to  you  very 
strange,"  he  said.  There  was,  after  all,  something 
substantial  in  his  laughter.  Gertrude  looked  at 
him  from  head  to  foot.  Yes,  he  was  remarkably 
handsome ;  but  his  smile  was  almost  a  grimace. 
"  It  is  very  still,"  he  went  on,  coming  nearer 
again.  And  as  she  only  looked  at  him,  for  reply, 
he  added,  "  Are  you  all  alone  ?  " 

"Every  one  has  gone  to  church,"  said  Ger- 
trude. 

"  I  was  afraid  of  that !  "  the  young  man  ex- 
claimed. "  But  I  hope  you  are  not  afraid  of  me." 

"  You  ought  to  tell  me  who  you  are,"  Gertrude 
answered. 

"Tarn   afraid  of  you!"  said   the  young   man. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  85 

" 1  had  a  different  plan.  I  expected  the  servant 
would  take  in  my  card,  and  that  you  would  put 
your  heads  together,  before  admitting  me,  and 
make  out  my  identity." 

Gertrude  had  been  wondering  with  a  quick  in- 
tensity which  brought  its  result;  and  the  result 
seemed  an  answer  —  a  wondrous,  delightful  an- 
swer—  to  her  vague  wish  that  something  would 
befall  her.  "  I  know  —  I  know,"  she  said.  "  You 
come  from  Europe." 

"  We  came  two  days  ago.  You  have  heard  of 
us,  then  —  you  believe  in  us  ?  " 

"  We  have  known,  vaguely,"  said  Gertrude, 
"  that  we  had  relations  in  France." 

"  And  have  you  ever  wanted  to  see  us?  "  asked 
the  young  man. 

Gertrude  was  silent  a  moment.  "  I  have  wanted 
to  see  you." 

"  I  am  glad,  then,  it  is  you  I  have  found.  We 
wanted  to  see  you,  so  we  came." 

"  On  purpose  ?  "  asked  Gertrude. 

The  young  man  looked  round  him,  smiling  still. 
"  Well,  yes  ;  on  purpose.  Does  that  sound  as  if 
we  should  bore  you  ?  "  he  added.  "  I  don't  think 
we  shall — I  really  don't  think  we  shall.  We 
are  rather  fond  of  wandering,  too ;  and  we  were 
glad  of  a  pretext." 

"  And  you  have  just  arrived  ?  " 


36  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  In  Boston,  two  days  ago.  At  the  inn  I  asked 
for  Mr.  Wentworth.  He  must  be  your  father. 
They  found  out  for  me  where  he  lived ;  they 
seemed  often  to  have  heard  of  him.  I  determined 
to  come,  without  ceremony.  So,  this  lovely  morn- 
ing, they  set  my  face  in  the  right  direction,  and 
told  me  to  walk  straight  before  me,  out  of  town. 
I  came  on  foot  because  I  wanted  to  see  the  coun- 
try. I  walked  and  walked,  and  here  I  am  !  It 's 
a  good  many  miles." 

"  It  is  seven  miles  and  a  half,"  said  Gertrude, 
softly.  Now  that  this  handsome  young  man  was 
proving  himself  a  reality  she  found  herself  vaguely 
trembling  ;  she  was  deeply  excited.  She  had  never 
in  her  life  spoken  to  a  foreigner,  and  she  had  often 
thought  it  would  be  delightful  to  do  so.  Here 
was  one  who  had  suddenly  been  engendered  by 
the  Sabbath  stillness  for  her  private  use ;  and 
such  a  brilliant,  polite,  smiling  one !  She  found 
time  and  means  to  compose  herself,  however :  to 
remind  herself  that  she  must  exercise  a  sort  of 
official  hospitality.  "  We  are  very  —  very  glad 
to  see  you,"  she  said.  "  Won't  you  come  into  the 
house  ?  "  And  she  moved  toward  the  open  door. 

"  You  are  not  afraid  of  me;  then  ?  "  asked  the 
young  man  again,  with  his  light  laugh. 

She  wondered  a  moment,  and  then,  "  We  are 
not  afraid  —  here,"  she  said. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  87 

"  Ah,  comme  vous  devez  avoir  raison !  "  cried 
the  young  man,  looking  all  round  him,  apprecia- 
tively. It  was  the  first  time  that  Gertrude  had 
heard  so  many  words  of  French  spoken.  They 
gave  her  something  of  a  sensation.  Her  compan- 
ion followed  her,  watching,  with  a  certain  excite- 
ment of  his  own,  this  tall,  interesting-looking  girl, 
dressed  in  her  clear,  crisp  muslin.  He  paused  in 
the  hall,  where  there  was  a  broad  white  staircase 
with  a  white  balustrade.  "  What  a  pleasant 
house  !  "  he  said.  "  It 's  lighter  inside  than  it  is 
out." 

"It's  pleasanter  here,"  said  Gertrude,  and  she 
led  the  way  into  the  parlor,  —  a  high,  clean,  rather 
empty-looking  room.  Here  they  stood  looking  at 
each  other,  —  the  young  man  smiling  more  than 
ever ;  Gertrude,  very  serious ,  trying  to  smile. 

"I  don't  believe  you  know  my  name,"  he  said. 
"  I  am  called  Felix  Young.  Your  father  is  my 
uncle.  My  mother  was  his  half  sister,  and  older 
than  he." 

"  Yes,"  said  Gertrude,  "  and  she  turned  Roman 
Catholic  and  married  in  Europe." 

"  I  see  you  know,"  said  the  young  man.  "  She 
married  and  she  died.  Your  father's  family  did  n't 
like  her  husband.  They  called  him  a  foreigner ; 
but  he  was  not.  My  poor  father  was  born  in 
Sicily,  but  his  parents  were  American." 


38  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  In  Sicily  ?  "  Gertrude  murmured. 

"  It  is  true,"  said  Felix  Young,  "  that  they  had 
spent  their  lives  in  Europe.  But  they  were  very 
patriotic.  And  so  are  we." 

"  And  you  are  Sicilian,"  said  Gertrude. 

"  Sicilian,  no  !  Let 's  see.  I  was  born  at  a 
little  place  —  a  dear  little  place  —  in  France. 
My  sister  was  born  at  Vienna." 

"  So  you  are  French,"  said  Gertrude. 

"  Heaven  forbid  !  "  cried  the  young  man.  Ger- 
trude's eyes  were  fixed  upon  him  almost  insist- 
ently. He  began  to  laugh  again.  "  I  can  easily 
be  French,  if  that  will  please  you." 

"  You  are  a  foreigner  of  some  sort,"  said  Ger- 
trude. 

"  Of  some  sort  —  yes  ;  I  suppose  so.  But  who 
can  say  of  what  sort?  I  don't  think  we  have 
ever  had  occasion  to  settle  the  question.  You 
know  there  are  people  like  that.  About  their 
country,  their  religion,  their  profession,  they  can't 
tell." 

Gertrude  stood  there  gazing ;  she  had  not  asked 
him  to  sit  down.  She  had  never  heard  of  people 
like  that ;  she  wanted  to  hear.  "  Where  do  you 
live?"  she  asked. 

"  They  can't  tell  that,  either !  "  said  Felix.  « I 
am  afraid  you  will  think  they  are  little  better 
than  vagabonds.  I  have  lived  anywhere  —  every- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  39 

where.  I  really  think  I  have  lived  in  every  city 
in  Europe."  Gertrude  gave  a  little  long  soft  ex- 
halation. It  made  the  young  man  smile  at  her 
again ;  and  his  smile  made  her  blush  a  little.  To 
take  refuge  from  blushing  she  asked  him  if,  after 
his  long  walk,  he  was  not  hungry  or  thirsty.  Her 
hand  was  in  her  pocket ;  she  was  fumbling  with 
the  little  key  that  her  sister  had  given  her.  "  Ah, 
my  dear  young  lady,"  he  said,  clasping  his  hands 
a  little,  "  if  you  could  give  me,  in  charity,  a  glass 
of  wine !  " 

Gertrude  gave  a  smile  and  a  little  nod,  and 
went  quickly  out  of  the  room.  Presently  she 
came  back  with  a  very  large  decanter  in  one  hand 
and  a  plate  in  the  other,  on  which  was  placed  a 
big,  round  cake  with  a  frosted  top.  Gertrude, 
in  taking  the  cake  from  the  closet,  had  had  a 
moment  of  acute  consciousness  that  it  composed 
the  refection  of  which  her  sister  had  thought  that 
Mr.  Brand  would  like  to  partake.  Her  kinsman 
from  across  the  seas  was  looking  at  the  pale,  high- 
hung  engravings.  When  she  came  in  he  turned 
and  smiled  at  her,  as  if  they  had  been  old  friends 
meeting  after  a  separation.  "You  wait  upon  me 
yourself  ? "  he  asked.  "  I  am  served  like  the 
gods !  "  She  had  waited  upon  a  great  many  peo- 
ple, but  none  of  them  had  ever  told  her  that.  The 
observation  added  a  certain  lightness  to  the  step 


40  THE  EUROPEANS. 

with  which  she  went  to  a  little  table  where  there 
were  some  curious  red  glasses  —  glasses  covered 
with  little  gold  sprigs,  which  Charlotte  used  to 
dust  every  morning  with  her  own  hands.  Ger- 
trude thought  the  glasses  very  handsome,  and  it 
was  a  pleasure  to  her  to  know  that  the  wine  was 
good  ;  it  was  her  father's  famous  madeira.  Felix 
Young  thought  it  excellent  ;  he  wondered  why 
he  had  been  told  that  there  was  no  wine  in  Amer- 
ica. She  cut  him  an  immense  triangle  out  of  the 
cake,  and  again  she  thought  of  Mr.  Brand.  Felix 
sat  there,  with  his  glass  in  one  hand  and  his  huge 
morsel  of  cake  in  the  other  —  eating,  drinking, 
smiling,  talking.  "  I  am  very  hungry,"  he  said. 
"  I  am  not  at  all  tired  ;  I  am  never  tired.  But  I 
am  very  hungry." 

"  You  must  stay  to  dinner,"  said  Gertrude. 
"  At  two  o'clock.  They  will  all  have  come  back 
from  church ;  you  will  see  the  others." 

"  Who  are  the  others  ?  "  asked  the  young  man. 
"  Describe  them  all." 

"  You  will  see  for  yourself.  It  is  you  that  must 
tell  me  ;  now,  about  your  sister." 

"  My  sister  is  the  Baroness  Miinster,"  said 
Felix. 

On  hearing  that  his  sister  was  a  Baroness,  Ger- 
trude got  up  and  walked  about  slowly,  in  front 
of  him.  She  was  silent  a  moment.  She  was  think- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  41 

ing  of  it.  "  Why  did  n't  she  come,  too  ?  "  she 
asked. 

"  She  did  come  ;  slie  is  in  Boston,  at  the  hotel." 

"  We  will  go  and  see  her,"  said  Gertrude,  look- 
ing at  him. 

"  She  begs  you  will  not ! "  the  young  man  re- 
plied. "  She  sends  you  her  love  ;  she  sent  me  to 
announce  her.  She  will  come  and  pay  her  respects 
to  your  father." 

Gertrude  felt  herself  trembling  again.  A  Bar- 
oness Minister,  who  sent  a  brilliant  young  man  to 
"  announce  "  her  ;  who  was  coming,  as  the  Queen 
•  of  Sheba  came  to  Solomon,  to  pay  her  "  respects  " 
to  quiet  Mr.  Wentworth  —  such  a  personage  pre- 
sented herself  to  Gertrude's  vision  with  a  most 
effective  unexpectedness.  For  a  moment  she 
hardly  knew  what  to  say.  "When  will  she 
come  ?  "  she  asked  at  last. 

"As  soon  as  you  will  allow  her — to-morrow. 
She  is  very  impatient,"  answered  Felix,  who 
wished  to  be  agreeable. 

"  To-morrow,  yes,"  said  Gertrude.  She  wished 
to  ask  more  about  her ;  but  she  hardly  knew  what 
could  be  predicated  of  a  Baroness  Minister.  "  Is 
she  —  is  she  —  married  ?  " 

Felix  had  finished  his  cake  and  wine ;  he  got 
up,  fixing  upon  the  young  girl  his  bright,  express- 
ive eyes.  "  She  is  married  to  a  German  prince 


42  THE  EUROPEANS.. 

—  Prince    Adolf,    of    Silberstadt-Schreckenstein. 
He  is  not  the  reigning  prince ;    he  is  a  younger 
brother." 

Gertrude  gazed  at  her  informant ;  her  lips  were 
slightly  parted.  "  Is  she  a  —  a  Princess  ?  "  she 
asked  at  last. 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  the  young  man  ;  "  her  position 
is  rather  a  singular  one.  It 's  a  morganatic  mar- 
riage." 

"  Morganatic  ?  "  These  were  new  names  and 
new  words  to  poor  Gertrude. 

"  That 's  what  they  call  a  marriage,  you  know, 
contracted  between  a  scion  of  a  ruling  house  and 

—  and  a  common  mortal.     They  made  Eugenia  a 
Baroness,   poor   woman ;  but   that   was   all   they 
could  do.     Now  they  want  to  dissolve  the  mar- 
riage.     Prince    Adolf,   between   ourselves,    is    a 
ninny;  but  his  brother,  who  is  a  clever  man,  has 
plans  for  him.     Eugenia,  naturally  enough,  makes 
difficulties ;  not,  however,  that  I  think  she  cares 
much  —  she 's    a  very   clever   woman  ;   I  'm   sure 
you  '11  like  her  —  but  she  wants  to  bother  them. 
Just  now  everything  is  en  Vair." 

The  cheerful,  off-hand  tone  in  which  her  visitor 
related  this  darkly  romantic  tale  seemed  to  Ger- 
trude very  strange;  but  it  seemed  also  to  convey 
a  certain  flattery  to  herself,  a  recognition  of  her 
wisdom  and  dignity.  She  felt  a  dozen  impressions 


THE  EUROPEANS.  43 

stirring  within  her,  and  presently  the  one  that 
was  uppermost  found  words.  "  They  want  to 
dissolve  her  marriage  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  So  it  appears." 

"  And  against  her  will  ?  " 

"  Against  her  right." 

"  She  must  be  very  unhappy  !  "  said  Gertrude. 

Her  visitor  looked  at  her,  smiling  ;  he  raised 
his  hand  to  the  back  of  his  head  and  held  it  there 
a  moment.  "  So  she  says,"  he  answered.  "  That 's 
her  story.  She  told  me  to  tell  it  you." 

"  Tell  me  more,"  said  Gertrude. 

"  No,  I  will  leave  that  to  her ;  she  does  it  bet- 
ter." 

Gertrude  gave  her  little  excited  sigh  again. 
"  Well,  if  she  is  unhappy,"  she  said,  "  I  am  glad 
she  has  come  to  us." 

She  had  been  so  interested  that  she  failed  to 
notice  the  sound  of  a  footstep  in  the  portico  ;  and 
yet  it  was  a  footstep  that  she  always  recognized. 
She  heard  it  in  the  hall,  and  then  she  looked  out 
of  the  window.  They  were  all  coming  back  from 
church  —  her  father,  her  sister  and  brother,  and 
their  cousins,  who  always  came  to  dinner  on  Sun- 
day. Mr.  Brand  had  come  in  first ;  he  was  in 
advance  of  the  others,  because,  apparently,  he  was 
still  disposed  to  say  what  she  had  not  wished  him 
to  say  an  hour  before.  He  came  into  the  parlor, 


44  THE  EUROPEANS. 

looking  for  Gertrude.  He  had  two  little  books  in 
his  hand.  On  seeing  Gertrude's  companion  he 
slowly  stopped,  looking  at  him. 

"  Is  this  a  cousin  ?  "  asked  Felix. 

Then  Gertrude  saw  that  she  must  introduce  him ; 
but  her  ears,  and,  by  sympathy,  her  lips,  were 
full  of  all  that  he  had  been  telling  her.  "  This  is 
the  Prince,"  she  said,  "  the  Prince  of  Silberstadt- 
Schreckenstein  !  " 

Felix  burst  out  laughing,  and  Mr.  Brand  stood 
staring,  while  the  others,  who  had  passed  into  the 
house,  appeared  behind  him  in  the  open  door-way. 


III. 

THAT  evening  at  dinner  Felix  Young  gave  his 
sister,  the  Baroness  Miinster,  an  account  of  his 
impressions.  She  saw  that  he  had  come  back  in 
the  highest  possible  spirits  ;  but  this  fact,  to  her 
own  mind,  was  not  a  reason  for  rejoicing.  She 
had  but  a  limited  confidence  in  her  brother's  judg- 
ment ;  his  capacity  for  taking  rose-colored  views 
was  such  as  to  vulgarize  one  of  the  prettiest  of 
tints.  Still,  she  supposed  he  could  be  trusted  to 
give  her  the  mere  facts  ;  and  she  invited  him  with 
some  eagerness  to  communicate  them.  "  I  sup- 
pose, at  least,  they  did  n't  turn  you  out  from  the 
door ;  "  she  said.  "  You  have  been  away  some  ten 
hours." 

"  Turn  me  from  the  door !  "  Felix  exclaimed. 
"  They  took  me  to  their  hearts ;  they  killed  the 
fatted  calf." 

"  I  know  what  you  want  to  say :  they  are  a 
collection  of  angels." 

"  Exactly,"  said  Felix.  "  They  are  a  collec- 
tion of  angels  —  simply." 

"  C'est  bien  vague,"  remarked  the  Baroness. 
"  What  are  they  like  ?  " 


46  '    THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Like  nothing  you  ever  saw." 

"  I  am  sure  I  am  much  obliged  ;  but  that  is 
hardly  more  definite.  Seriously,  they  were  glad 
to  see  you  ?  " 

"  Enchanted.  It  has  been  the  proudest  day  of 
my  life.  Never,  never  have  I  been  so  lionized ! 
I  assure  you,  I  was  cock  of  the  walk.  My  dear 
sister,"  said  the  young  man,  "nous  n'avons  qu'a 
nous  tenir  ;  we  shall  be  great  swells  !  " 

Madame  Minister  looked  at  him,  and  her  eye 
exhibited  a  slight  responsive  spark.  She  touched 
her  lips  to  a  glass  of  wine,  and  then  she  said,  "De- 
scribe them.  Give  me  a  picture." 

Felix  drained  his  own  glass.  "  Well,  it 's  in 
the  country,  among  the  meadows  and  woods;  a 
wild  sort  of  place,  and  yet  not  far  from  here. 
Only,  such  a  road,  rny  dear !  Imagine  one  of  the 
Alpine  glaciers  reproduced  in  mud.  But  you  will 
not  spend  much  time  on  it,  for  they  want  you  to 
come  and  stay,  once  for  all." 

"  Ah,"  said  the  Barohess,  "  they  want  me  to 
come  and  stay,  once  for  all  ?  Bon." 

"  It 's  intensely  rural,  tremendously  natural ; 
and  all  overhung  with  this  strange  white  light,  this 
far-away  blue  sky.  There  's  a  big  wooden  house 
—  a  kind  of  three-story  bungalow ;  it  looks  like 
a  magnified  Nuremberg  toy.  There  was  a  gentle- 
man there  that  made  a  speech  to  me  about  it  and 


THE  EUROPEANS.  47 

called  it  a  '  venerable  mansion  ; '  but  it  looks  as  if 
it  had  been  built  last  night." 

"Is  it  handsome  —  is  it  elegant?"  asked  the 
Baroness. 

Felix  looked  at  her  a  moment,  smiling.  "  It 's 
very  clean !  No  splendors,  no  gilding,  no  troops 
of  servants ;  rather  straight-backed  chairs.  But 
you  might  eat  off  the  floors,  and  you  can  sit  down 
on  the  stairs." 

"  That  must  be  a  privilege.  And  the  inhabit- 
ants are  straight-backed  too,  of  course." 

"  My  dear  sister,"  said  Felix,  "  the  inhabitants 
are  charming." 

"  In  what  style  ?  " 

"  In  a  style  of  their  own.  How  shall  I  de- 
scribe it?  It's  primitive;  it's  patriarchal;  it's 
the  ton  of  the  golden  age." 

"And  have  they  nothing  golden  but  their  ton? 
Are  there  no  symptoms  of  wealth  ?  " 

"  I  should  say  there  was  wealth  without  symp- 
toms. A  plain,  homely  way  of  life  :  nothing  for 
show,  and  very  little  for  —  what  shall  I  call  it  ?  — 
for  the  senses  :  but  a  great  aisance,  and  a  lot  of 
money,  out  of  sight,  that  comes  forward  very 
quietly  for  subscriptions  to  institutions,  for  re- 
pairing tenements,  for  paying  doctor's  bills  ;  per- 
haps even  for  portioning  daughters." 

"  And  the  daughters  ?  "  Madame  Miinster  de- 
manded. "  How  many  are  there  ?  " 


48  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  There  are  two,  Charlotte  and  Gertrude." 

"  Are  they  pretty  ?  " 

"  One  of  them,"  said  Felix. 

"Which  is  that?" 

The  young  man  was  silent,  looking  at  his  sister. 
"  Charlotte,"  he  said  at  last. 

She  looked  at  him  in  return.  "  I  see.  You  are 
in  love  with  Gertrude.  They  must  be  Puritans  to 
their  finger-tips  ;  anything  but  gay!  " 

"  No,  they  are  not  gay,"  Felix  admitted.  "  They 
are  sober;  they  are  even  severe.  They  are  of  a 
pensive  cast ;  they  take  things  hard.  I  think  there 
is  something  the  matter  with  them  ;  they  have 
some  melancholy  memory  or  some  depressing  ex- 
pectation. It  's  not  the  epicurean  temperament. 
My  uncle,  Mr.  Wentworth,  is  a  tremendously  high- 
toned  old  fellow ;  he  looks  as  if  he  were  undergo- 
ing martyrdom,  not  by  fire,  but  by  freezing.  But 
we  shall  cheer  them  up  ;  we  shall  do  them  good. 
They  will  take  a  good  deal  of  stirring  up  ;  but 
they  are  wonderfully  kind  and  gentle.  And  they 
are  appreciative.  They  think  one  clever ;  they 
think  one  remarkable  !  " 

"  That  is  very  fine,  so  far  as  it  goes,"  said  the 
Baroness.  "  But  are  we  to  be  shut  up  to  these 
three  people,  Mr.  Wentworth  and  the  two  young 
women  —  what  did  you  say  their  names  were  — 
Deborah  and  Hephzibah  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  49 

"  Oh,  no  ;  there  is  another  little  girl,  a  cousin 
of  theirs,  a  very  pretty  creature ;  a  thorough  lit- 
tle American.  And  then  there  is  the  son  of  the 
house." 

"Good!  "  said  the  Baroness.  "We  are  coming 
to  the  gentlemen.  What  of  the  son  of  the  house?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  he  gets  tipsy." 

"  He,  then,  has  the  epicurean  temperament ! 
How  old  is  he?" 

"  He  is  a  boy  of  twenty ;  a  pretty  young  fellow, 
but  I  am  afraid  he  has  vulgar  tastes.  And  then 
there  is  Mr.  Brand  —  a  very  tall  young  man,  a  sort 
of  lay-priest.  They  seem  to  think  a  good  deal  of 
him,  but  I  don't  exactly  make  him  out." 

"  And  is  there  nothing,"  asked  the  Baroness, 
"  between  these  extremes  —  this  mysterious  eccle- 
siastic and  that  intemperate  youth  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  there  is  Mr.  Acton.  I  think,"  said 
the  young  man,  with  a  nod  at  his  sister,  "  that  you 
will  like  Mr.  Acton." 

"  Remember  that  I  am  very  fastidious,"  said  the 
Baroness.  "  Has  he  very  good  manners  ?  " 

"  He  will  have  them  with  you.  He  is  a  man  of 
the  world ;  he  has  been  to  China." 

Madame  Minister  gave  a  little  laugh.  "  A  man 
of  the  Chinese  world  !  He  must  be  very  interest- 
ing." 

4 


50  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  I  have  an  idea  that  he  brought  home  a  fort- 
une," said  Felix. 

"  That  is  always  interesting.  Is  he  young,  good- 
looking,  clever  ?  " 

"  He  is  less  than  forty  ;  he  has  a  baldish  head  ; 
he  says  witty  things.  I  rather  think/'  added  the 
young  man,  "that  he  will  admire  the  Baroness 
Munster." 

44  It  is  very  possible,'*  said  this  lady.  Her 
brother  never  knew  how  she  would  take  things  ; 
but  shortly  afterwards  she  declared  that  he  had 
made  a  very  pretty  description  and  that  on  the 
morrow  she  would  go  and  see  for  herself. 

They  mounted,  accordingly,  into  a  great  ba- 
rouche —  a  vehicle  as  to  which  the  Baroness  found 
nothing  to  criticise  but  the  price  that  was  asked 
for  it  and  the  fact  that  the  coachman  wore  a  straw 
hat.  (At  Silberstadt  Madame  Munster  had  had 
liveries  of  yellow  and  crimson.)  They  drove  into 
the  country,  and  the  Baroness,  leaning  far  back 
and  swaying  her  lace-fringed  parasol,  looked  to 
right  and  to  left  and  surveyed  the  way-side  ob- 
jects. After  a  while  she  pronounced  them  "  af- 
freux."  Her  brother  remarked  that  it  was  ap- 
parently a  country  in  which  the  foreground  was 
inferior  to  the  plans  recul^s :  and  the  Baroness 
rejoined  that  the  landscape  seemed  to  be  all  fore- 
ground. Felix  had  fixed  with  his  new  friends  the 


THE  EUROPEANS.  51 

hour  at  which  he  should  bring  his  sister ;  it  was 
four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  large,  clean- 
faced  house  wore,  to  his  eyes,  as  the  barouche 
drove  up  to  it,  a  very  friendly  aspect ;  the  high, 
slender  elms  made  lengthening  shadows  in  front 
of  it.  The  Baroness  descended  ;  her  American 
kinsfolk  were  stationed  in  the  portico.  Felix 
waved  his  hat  to  them,  and  a  tall,  lean  gentleman, 
with  a  high  forehead  and  a  clean  shaven  face,  came 
forward  toward  the  garden  gate.  Charlotte  Went- 
worth  walked  at  his  side.  Gertrude  came  behind, 
more  slowly.  Both  of  these  young  ladies  wore 
rustling  silk  dresses.  Felix  ushered  his  sister  into 
the  gate.  "  Be  very  gracious,"  he  said  to  her. 
But  he  saw  the  admonition  was  superfluous.  Eu- 
genia was  prepared  to  be  gracious  as  only  Eugenia 
could  be.  Felix  knew  no  keener  pleasure  than  to 
be  able  to  admire  his  sister  unrestrictedly ;  for  if 
the  opportunity  was  frequent,  it  was  not  inveter- 
ate. When  she  desired  to  please  she  was  to  him, 
as  to  every  one  else,  the  most  charming  woman  in 
the  world.  Then  he  forgot  that  she  was  ever 
anything  else  ;  that  she  was  sometimes  hard  and 
perverse  ;  that  he  was  occasionally  afraid  of  her. 
Now,  as  she  took  his  arm  to  pass  into  the  garden, 
he  felt  that  she  desired,  that  she  proposed,  to 
please,  and  this  situation  made  him  very  happy. 
Eugenia  would  please. 


52  THE  EUROPEANS. 

The  tall  gentleman  came  to  meet  her,  looking 
very  rigid  and  grave.  But  it  was  a  rigidity  that 
had  no  illiberal  meaning.  Mr.  Wentworth's  man- 
ner was  pregnant,  on  the  contrary,  with  a  sense  of 
grand  responsibility,  of  the  solemnity  of  the  oc- 
casion, of  its  being  difficult  to  show  sufficient  def- 
erence to  a  lady  at  once  so  distinguished  and  so 
unhappy.  Felix  had  observed  on  the  day  before 
his  characteristic  pallor  ;  and  now  he  perceived 
that  there  was  something  almost  cadaverous  in  his 
uncle's  high-featured  white  face.  But  so  clever 
were  this  young  man's  quick  sympathies  and 
perceptions  that  he  already  learned  that  in  these 
semi-mortuary  manifestations  there  was  no  cause 
for  alarm.  His  light  imagination  had  gained  a 
glimpse  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  spiritual  mechanism, 
and  taught  him  that,  the  old  man  being  infinitely 
conscientious,  the  special  operation  of  conscience 
within  him  announced  itself  by  several  of  the  in- 
dications of  physical  faintness. 

The  Baroness  took  her  uncle's  hand,  and  stood 
looking  at  him  with  her  ugly  face  and  her  beauti- 
ful smile.  "  Have  I  done  right  to  come  ?  "  she 
asked. 

"  Very  right,  very  right,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth, 
solemnly.  He  had  arranged  in  his  mind  a  little 
speech;  but  now  it  quite  faded  away.  He  felt 
almost  frightened.  He  had  never  been  looked  at 


THE  EUROPEANS.  53 

in  just  that  way  —  with  just  that  fixed,  intense 
smile  —  by  any  woman ;  and  it  perplexed  and 
weighed  upon  him,  now,  that  the  woman  who  was 
smiling  so  and  who  had  instantly  given  him  a 
vivid  sense  of  her  possessing  other  unprecedented 
attributes,  was  his  own  niece,  the  child  of  his  own 
father's  daughter.  The  idea  that  his  niece  should 
be  a  German  Baroness,  married  "  morganatically  " 
to  a  Prince,  had  already  given  him  much  to  think 
about.  Was  it  right,  was  it  just,  was  it  accepta- 
ble ?  He  always  slept  badly,  and  the  night  be- 
fore he  had  lain  awake  much  more  even  than 
usual,  asking  himself  these  questions.  The  strange 
word  "  morganatic  "  was  constantly  in  his  ears  ; 
it  reminded  him  of  a  certain  Mrs.  Morgan  whom 
he  had  once  known  and  who  had  been  a  bold,  un- 
pleasant woman.  He  had  a  feeling  that  it  was 
his  duty,  so  long  as  the  Baroness  looked  at  him, 
smiling  in  that  way,  to  meet  her  glance  with  his 
own  scrupulously  adjusted,  consciously  frigid  or- 
gans of  vision;  but  on  this  occasion  he  failed  to 
perform  his  duty  to  the  last.  He  looked  away 
toward  his  daughters.  "  We  are  very  glad  to  see 
you,"  he  had  said.  "  Allow  me  to  introduce  my 
daughters  —  Miss  Charlotte  Went  worth,  Miss  Ger- 
trude Wentworth." 

The  Baroness  thought  she  had  never  seen  peo- 
ple less  demonstrative.     But  Charlotte  kissed  her 


64  THE  EUROPEANS. 

and  took  her  hand,  looking  at  her  sweetly  and 
solemnly.  Gertrude  seemed  to  her  almost  fune- 
real, though  Gertrude  might  have  found  a  source 
of  gayety  in  the  fact  that  Felix,  with  his  mag- 
nificent smile,  had  been  talking  to  her ;  he  had 
greeted  her  as  a  very  old  friend.  When  she 
kissed  the  Baroness  she  had  tears  in  her  eyes. 
Madame  Minister  took  each  of  these  young  women 
by  the  hand,  and  looked  at  them  all  over.  Char- 
lotte thought  her  very  strange-looking  and  singu- 
larly dressed  ;  she  could  not  have  said  whether  it 
was  well  or  ill.  She  was  glad,  at  any  rate,  that 
they  had  put  on  their  silk  gowns  —  especially 
Gertrude.  "  My  cousins  are  very  pretty,"  said 
the  Baroness,  turning  her  eyes  from  one  to  the 
other.  "  Your  daughters  are  very  handsome,  sir." 
Charlotte  blushed  quickly ;  she  had  never  yet 
heard  her  personal -appearance  alluded  to  in  a 
loud,  expressive  voice.  Gertrude  looked  away  — 
not  at  Felix ;  she  was  extremely  pleased.  It  was 
not  the  compliment  that  pleased  her ;  she  did  not 
believe  it;  she  thought  herself  very  plain.  She 
could  hardly  have  told  you  the  source  of  her  sat- 
isfaction ;  it  came  from  something  in  the  way  the 
Baroness  spoke,  and  it  was  not  diminished  —  it 
was  rather  deepened,  oddly  enough  —  by  the  young 
girl's  disbelief.  Mr.  Wentworth  was  silent ;  and 
then  he  asked,  formally,  "  Won't  you  come  into 
the  house  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  55 

"  These  are  not  all ;  you  have  some  other  chil- 
dren," said  the  Baroness. 

"  I  have  a  son,"  Mr.  Went  worth  answered. 

"And  why  doesn't  he  come  to  meet  me?" 
Eugenia  cried.  "  I  am  afraid  he  is  not  so  charm- 
ing as  his  sisters." 

"  I  don't  know ;  I  will  see  about  it,"  the  old 
man  declared. 

"  He  is  rather  afraid  of  ladies,"  Charlotte  said, 
softly. 

"  He  is  very  handsome,"  said  Gertrude,  as  loud 
as  she  could. 

"  We  will  go  in  and  find  him.  We  will  draw 
him  out  of  his  cachette."  And  the  Baroness  took 
Mr.  Wentworth's  arm,  who  was  not  aware  that 
he  had  offered  it  to  her,  and  who,  as  they  walked 
toward  the  house,  wondered  whether  he  ought  to 
have  offered  it  and  whether  it  was  proper  for  her 
to  take  it  if  it  had  not  been  offered.  "  I  want  to 
know  you  well,"  said  the  Baroness,  interrupting 
these  meditations,  "  and  I  want  you  to  know  me." 

"  It  seems  natural  that  we  should  know  each 
other,"  Mr.  Went  worth  rejoined.  "  We  are  near 
relatives." 

"  Ah,  there  comes  a  moment  in  life  when  one 
reverts,  irresistibly,  to  one's  natural  ties  —  to  one's 
natural  affections.  You  must  have  found  that !  " 
said  Eugenia. 


56  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Mr.  Wentworth  had  been  told  the  day  before 
by  Felix  that  Eugenia  was  very  clever,  very  brill- 
iant, and  the  information  had  held  him  in  some 
suspense.  This  was  the  cleverness,  he  supposed ; 
the  brilliancy  was  beginning.  "  Yes,  the  natural 
affections  are  very  strong,"  he  murmured. 

"  In  some  people,"  the  Baroness  declared.  "  Not 
in  all."  Charlotte  was  walking  beside  her  ;  she 
took  hold  of  her  hand  again,  smiling  always. 
"  And  you,  cousine,  where  did  you  get  that  en- 
chanting complexion  ?  "  she  went  on  ;  "  such  lilies 
and  roses  ?  "  The  roses  in  poor  Charlotte's  coun- 
tenance began  speedily  to  predominate  over  the 
lilies,  and  she  quickened  her  step  and  reached  the 
portico.  "  This  is  the  country  of  complexions," 
the  Baroness  continued,  addressing  herself  to  Mr. 
Wentworth.  "  I  am  convinced  they  are  more 
delicate.  There  are  very  good  ones  in  England  — 
in  Holland ;  but  they  are  very  apt  to  be  coarse. 
There  is  too  much  red." 

"  I  think  you  will  find,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth, 
"  that  this  country  is  superior  in  many  respects  to 
those  you  mention.  I  have  been  to  England  and 
Holland." 

"  Ah,  you  have  been  to  Europe  ?  "  cried  the 
Baroness.  "  Why  did  n't  you  come  and  see  me  ? 
But  it 's  better,  after  all,  this  way,"  she  said. 
They  were  entering  the  house ;  she  paused  and 


THE  EUROPEANS.  57 

looked  round  her.  "  I  see  you  have  arranged  your 
house  —  your  beautiful  house  —  in  the — in  the 
Dutch  taste !  " 

"  The  house  is  very  old,"  remarked  Mr.  Went- 
worth.  "  General  Washington  once  spent  a  week 
here." 

"  Oh,  I  have  heard  of  Washington,"  cried  the 
Baroness.  "  My  father  used  to  tell  me  of  him." 

Mr.  Wentworth  was  silent  a  moment,  and  then, 
"  I  found  he  was  very  well  known  in  Europe,"  he 
said. 

Felix  had  lingered  in  the  garden  with  Ger- 
trude ;  he  was  standing  before  her  and  smiling,  as 
he  had  done  the  day  before.  What  had  happened 
the  day  before  seemed  to  her  a  kind  of  dream. 
He  had  been  there  and  he  had  changed  every- 
thing ;  the  others  had  seen  him,  they  had  talked 
with  him  ;  but  that  he  should  come  again,  that  he 
should  be  part  of  the  future,  part  of  her  small,  fa- 
miliar, much-meditating  life  —  this  needed,  afresh, 
the  evidence  of  her  senses.  The  evidence  had 
come  to  her  senses  now;  and  her  senses  seemed 
to  rejoice  in  it.  "  What  do  you  think  of  Eu- 
genia ?  "  Felix  asked.  "  Is  n't  she  charming  ?  " 

"  She  is  very  brilliant,"  said  Gertrude.  "  But 
I  can't  tell  yet.  She  seems  to  me  like  a  singer 
singing  an  air.  You  can't  tell  till  the  song  is 
done." 


58  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Ah,  the  song  will  never  be  done  !  "  exclaimed 
the  young  man.  laughing.  "  Don't  you  think  her 
handsome  ?  " 

Gertrude  had  been  disappointed  in  the  beauty 
of  the  Baroness  Miinster ;  she  had  expected  her, 
for  mysterious  reasons,  to  resemble  a  very  pretty 
portrait  of  the  Empress  Josephine,  of  which  there 
hung  an  engraving  in  one  of  the  parlors,  and  which 
the  younger  Miss  Wentworth  had  always  greatly 
admired.  But  the  Baroness  was  not  at  all  like 
that  —  not  at  all.  Though  different,  however, 
she  was  very  wonderful,  and  Gertrude  felt  her- 
self most  suggestively  corrected.  It  was  strange, 
nevertheless,  that  Felix  should  speak  in  that  pos- 
itive way  about  his  sister's  beauty.  "  I  think  I 
shall  think  her  handsome,"  Gertrude  said.  "  It 
must  be  very  interesting  to  know  her.  I  don't 
feel  as  if  I  ever  could." 

"  Ah,  you  will  know  her  well ;  you  will  become 
great  friends,"  Felix  declared,  as  if  this  were  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world. 

"  She  is  very  graceful,"  said  Gertrude,  looking 
after  the  Baroness,  suspended  to  her  father's  arm. 
It  was  a  pleasure  to  her  to  say  that  any  one  was 
graceful. 

Felix  had  been  looking  about  him.  "  And  your 
little  cousin,  of  yesterday,"  he  said,  "  who  was  so 
wonderfully  pretty  —  what  has  become  of  her  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  59 

"  She  is  in  the  parlor,"  Gertrude  answered. 
"  Yes,  she  is  very  pretty."  She  felt  as  if  it  were 
her  duty  to  take  him  straight  into  the  house,  to 
where  he  might  be  near  her  cousin.  But  after 
hesitating  a  moment  she  lingered  still.  "  I  did  n't 
believe  you  would  come  back,"  she  said. 

"  Not  come  back  !  "  cried  Felix,  laughing.  "  You 
did  n't  know,  then,  the  impression  made  upon  this 
susceptible  heart  of  mine." 

She  wondered  whether  he  meant  the  impres- 
sion her  cousin  Lizzie  had  made.  "  Well,"  she 
said,  "I  didn't  think  we  should  ever  see  you 
again." 

"  And  pray  what  did  you  think  would  become 
of  me  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  I  thought  you  would  melt 
away." 

"  That 's  a  compliment  to  my  solidity  !  I  melt 
very  often,"  said  Felix,  "  but  there  is  always  some- 
thing left  of  me." 

"  I  came  and  waited  for  you  by  the  door,  be- 
cause the  others  did,"  Gertrude  went  on.  "  But 
if  you  had  never  appeared  I  should  not  have  been 
surprised." 

"  I  hope,"  declared  Felix,  looking  at  her,  "  that 
you  would  have  been  disappointed." 

She  looked  at  him  a  little,  and  shook  her  head. 
«No  — no!" 


60  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"Ah,  par  exemple!"  cried  the  young  man. 
"  You  deserve  that  I  should  never  leave  you." 

Going  into  the  parlor  they  found  Mr.  Went- 
worth performing  introductions.  A  young  man 
was  standing  before  the  Baroness,  blushing  a  good 
deal,  laughing  a  little,  and  shifting  his  weight 
from  one  foot  to  the  other  —  a  slim,  mild-faced 
young  man,  with  neatly-arranged  features,  like 
those  of  Mr.  Wentworth.  Two  other  gentlemen, 
behind  him,  had  risen  from  their  seats,  and  a  little 
apart,  near  one  of  the  windows,  stood  a  remarka- 
bly pretty  young  girl.  The  young  girl  was  knit- 
ting a  stocking;  but,  while  her  fingers  quickly 
moved,  she  looked  with  wide,  brilliant  eyes  at  the 
Baroness. 

"  And  what  is  your  son's  name  ?  "  said  Eugenia, 
smiling  at  the  young  man. 

"My  name  is  Clifford  Wentworth,  ma'am,"  he 
said  in  a  tremulous  voice. 

"Why  didn't  you  come  out  to  meet  me,  Mr. 
Clifford  Wentworth  ? "  the  Baroness  demanded, 
with  her  beautiful  smile. 

"  I  did  n't  think  you  would  want  me,"  said  the 
young  man,  slowly  sidling  about. 

"One  always  wants  a  beau  cousin, — if  one  has 
one  !  But  if  you  are  very  nice  to  me  in  future  I 
won't  remember  it  against  you."  And  Madame 
Miinster  transferred  her  smile  to  the  other  persons 


THE  EUROPEANS.  61 

present.  It  rested  first  upon  the  candid  counte- 
nance and  long-skirted  figure  of  Mr.  Brand,  whose 
eyes  were  intently  fixed  upon  Mr.  Wentworth,  as 
if  to  beg  him  not  to  prolong  an  anomalous  sit- 
uation. Mr.  Wentworth  pronounced  his  name. 
Eugenia  gave  him  a  very  charming  glance,  and 
then  looked  at  the  other  gentleman. 

This  latter  personage  was  a  man  of  rather  less 
than  the  usual  stature  and  the  usual  weight,  with 
a  quick,  observant,  agreeable  dark  eye,  a  small 
quantity  of  thin  dark  hair,  and  a  small  mustache. 
He  had  been  standing  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets  ;  and  when  Eugenia  looked  at  him  he 
took  them  out.  But  he  did  not,  like  Mr.  Brand, 
look  evasively  and  urgently  at  their  host.  He 
met  Eugenia's  eyes ;  he  appeared  to  appreciate 
the  privilege  of  meeting  them.  Madame  Minister 
instantly  felt  that  he  was,  intrinsically,  the  most 
important  person  present.  She  was  not  uncon- 
scious that  this  impression  was  in  some  degree 
manifested  in  the  little  sympathetic  nod  with 
which  she  acknowledged  Mr.  Wentworth's  an- 
nouncement, "  My  cousin,  Mr.  Acton  !  " 

"Your  cousin  —  not  mine  ?  "  said  the  Baroness. 

"  It  only  depends  upon  you,"  Mr.  Acton  de- 
clared, laughing. 

The  Baroness  looked  at  him  a  moment,  and 
noticed  that  he  had  very  white  teeth.  "  Let  it 


62  THE  EUROPEANS. 

depend  upon  your  behavior,"  she  said.  "  I  think 
I  had  better  wait.  I  have  cousins  enough.  Un- 
less I  can  also  claim  relationship,"  she  added, 
"  with  that  charming  young  lady,"  and  she  pointed 
to  the  young  girl  at  the  window. 

"That's  my  sister,"  said  Mr.  Acton.  And 
Gertrude  Wentworth  put  her  arm  round  the 
young  girl  and  led  her  forward.  It  was  not,  ap- 
parently, that  she  needed  much  leading.  She  came 
toward  the  Baroness  with  a  light,  quick  step,  and 
with  perfect  self-possession,  rolling  her  stocking 
round  its  needles.  She  had  dark  blue  eyes  and 
dark  brown  hair;  she  was  wonderfully  pretty. 

Eugenia  kissed  her,  as  she  had  kissed  the  other 
young  women,  and  then  held  her  off  a  little,  look- 
ing at  her.  "Now  this  is  quite  another  type"  she 
said ;  she  pronounced  the  word  in  the  French  man- 
ner. "  This  is  a  different  outline,  my  uncle,  a  dif- 
ferent character,  from  that  of  your  own  daughters. 
This,  Felix,"  she  went  on,  "  is  very  much  more 
what  we  have  always  thought  of  as  the  Amer- 
ican type." 

The  young  girl,  during  this  exposition,  was 
smiling  askance  at  every  one  in  turn,  and  at  Felix 
out  of  turn.  "I  find  only  one  type  here !  "  cried 
Felix,  laughing.  "  The  type  adorable  !  " 

This  sally  was  received  in  perfect  silence,  but 
Felix,  who  learned  all  things  quickly,  had  al- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  63 

ready  learned  that  the  silences  frequently  ob- 
served among  his  new  acquaintances  were  not 
necessarily  restrictive  or  resentful.  It  was,  as 
one  might  say,  the  silence  of  expectation,  of 
modesty.  They  were  all  standing  round  his  sister, 
as  if  they  were  expecting  her  to  acquit  herself  of 
the  exhibition  of  some  peculiar  faculty,  some  brill- 
iant talent.  Their  attitude  seemed  to  imply  that 
she  was  a  kind  of  conversational  mountebank,  at- 
tired, intellectually,  in  gauze  and  spangles.  This 
attitude  gave  a  certain  ironical  force  to  Madame 
Minister's  next  words.  "  Now  this  is  your  circle," 
she  said  to  her  uncle.  "  This  is  your  salon.  These 
are  your  regular  habitue's,  eh  ?  I  am  so  glad  to 
see  you  all  together." 

"Oh,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth,  "  they  are  always 
dropping  in  and  out.  You  must  do  the  same." 

"  Father,"  interposed  Charlotte  Wentworth, 
"  they  must  do  something  more."  And  she  turned 
her  sweet,  serious  face,  that  seemed  at  once  timid 
and  placid,  upon  their  interesting  visitor.  "  What 
is  your  name  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Eugenia-Camilla-Dolores,"  said  the  Baroness, 
smiling.  "  But  you  need  n't  say  all  that." 

"  I  will  say  Eugenia,  if  you  will  let  me.  You 
must  come  and  stay  with  us." 

The  Baroness  laid  her  hand  upon  Charlotte's 
arm  very  tenderly  ;  but  she  reserved  herself.  She 


64  THE  EUROPEANS. 

was  wondering  whether  it  would  be  possible  to 
"  stay  "  with  these  people.  "  It  would  be  very 
charming  —  very  charming,"  she  said ;  and  her  eyes 
wandered  over  the  company,  over  the  room.  She 
wished  to  gain  time  before  committing  herself. 
Her  glance  fell  upon  young  Mr.  Brand,  who  stood 
there,  with  his  arms  folded  and  his  hand  on  his 
chin,  looking  at  her.  "  The  gentleman,  I  suppose, 
is  a  sort  of  ecclesiastic,"  she  said  to  Mr.  Went- 
worth,  lowering  her  voice  a  little. 

"  He  is  a  minister,"  answered  Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  A  Protestant  ?  "  asked  Eugenia. 

"  I  am  a  Unitarian,  madam,"  replied  Mr.  Brand, 
impressively. 

"  Ah,  I  see,"  said  Eugenia.  "  Something  new." 
She  had  never  heard  of  this  form  of  worship. 

Mr.  Acton  began  to  laugh,  and  Gertrude  looked 
anxiously  at  Mr.  Brand. 

"  You  have  come  very  far,"  said  Mr.  Went- 
worth. 

"  Very  far  —  very  far,"  the  Baroness  replied, 
with  a  graceful  shake  of  her  head  —  a  shake  that 
might  have  meant  many  different  things. 

"  That 's  a  reason  why  you  ought  to  settle  down 
with  us,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth,  with  that  dryness 
of  utterance  which,  as  Eugenia  was  too  intelligent 
not  to  feel,  took  nothing  from  the  delicacy  of  his 
meaning. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  65 

She  looked  at  him,  and  for  an  instant,  in  his 
cold,  still  face,  she  seemed  to  see  a  far-away  like- 
ness to  the  vaguely  remembered  image  of  her 
mother.  Eugenia  was  a  woman  of  sudden  emo- 
tions, and  now,  unexpectedly,  she  felt  one  rising 
in  her  heart.  She  kept  looking  round  the  circle  ; 
she  knew  that  there  was  admiration  in  all  the  eyes 
that  were  fixed  upon  her.  She  smiled  at  them 
all. 

"I  came  to  look — to  try  —  to  ask,"  she  said. 
"It  seems  to  me  I  have  done  well.  I  am  very 
tired ;  I  want  to  rest."  There  were  tears  in  her 
eyes.  The  luminous  interior,  the  gentle,  tranquil 
people,  the  simple,  serious  life  —  the  sense  of  these 
things  pressed  upon  her  with  an  overmastering 
force,  and  she  felt  herself  yielding  to  one  of  the 
most  genuine  emotions  she  had  ever  known.  "  I 
should  like  to  stay  here,"  she  said.  "  Pray  take 
me  in." 

Though  she  was  smiling,  there  were  tears  in  her 
voice  as  well  as  in  her  eyes.  "  My  dear  niece," 
said  Mr.  Wentworth,  softly.  And  Charlotte  put 
out  her  arms  and  drew  the  Baroness  toward  her ; 
while  Robert  Acton  turned  away,  with  his  hands 
stealing  into  his  pockets. 
5 


IV. 

A  FEW  days  after  the  Baroness  Miinster  had 
presented  herself  to  her  American  kinsfolk  she 
came,  with  her  brother,  and  took  up  her  abode  in 
that  small  white  house  adjacent  to  Mr.  Went- 
worth's  own  dwelling  of  which  mention  has  al- 
ready been  made.  It  was  on  going  with  his 
daughters  to  return  her  visit  that  Mr.  Wentworth 
placed  this  comfortable  cottage  at  her  service  ;  the 
offer  being  the  result  of  a  domestic  colloquy,  dif- 
fused througli  the  ensuing  twenty-four  hours,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  two  foreign  visitors  were  dis- 
cussed and  analyzed  with  a  great  deal  of  earnest- 
ness and  subtlety.  The  discussion  went  forward, 
as  I  say,  in  the  family  circle  ;  but  that  circle  on 
the  evening  following  Madame  Miinster's  return 
to  town,  as  on  many  other  occasions,  included 
Robert  Acton  and  his  pretty  sister.  If  you  had 
been  present,  it  would  probably  not  have  seemed 
to  you  that  the  advent  of  these  brilliant  strangers 
was  treated  as  an  exhilarating  occurrence,  a  pleas- 
ure the  more  in  this  tranquil  household,  a  prospect- 
ive source  of  entertainment.  This  was  not  Mr. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  67 

Wentworth'a  way  of  treating  any  human  occur- 
rence. The  sudden  irruption  into  the  well-ordered 
consciousness  of  the  Wentworths  of  an  element 
not  allowed  for  in  its  scheme  of  usual  obligations 
required  a  readjustment  of  that  sense  of  respon- 
sibility which  constituted  its  principal  furniture. 
To  consider  an  event,  crudely  and  baldly,  in  the 
light  of  the  pleasure  it  might  bring  them  was 
an  intellectual  exercise  with  which  Felix  Young's 
American  cousins  were  almost  wholly  unacquainted, 
and  which  they  scarcely  supposed  to  be  largely 
pursued  in  any  section  of  human  society.  The 
arrival  of  Felix  and  his  sister  was  a  satisfaction, 
but  it  was  a  singularly  joyless  and  inelastic  satis- 
faction. It  was  an  extension  of  duty,  of  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  more  recondite  virtues  ;  but  neither 
Mr.  Wentworth,  nor  Charlotte,  nor  Mr.  Brand, 
who,  among  these  excellent  people,  was  a  great 
promoter  of  reflection  and  aspiration,  frankly  ad- 
verted to  it  as  an  extension  of  enjoyment.  This 
function  was  ultimately  assumed  by  Gertrude 
Wentworth,  who  was  a  peculiar  girl,  but  the  full 
compass  of  whose  peculiarities  had  not  been  ex- 
hibited before  they  very  ingeniously  found  their 
pretext  in  the  presence  of  these  possibly  too  agree- 
able foreigners.  Gertrude,  however,  had  to  strug- 
gle with  a  great  accumulation  of  obstructions,  both 
of  the  subjective,  as  the  metaphysicians  say,  and 


68  THE  EUROPEANS. 

of  the  objective,  order ;  and  indeed  it  is  no  small 
part  of  the  purpose  of  this  little  history  to  set 
forth  her  struggle.  What  seemed  paramount  in 
this  abrupt  enlargement  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  sym- 
pathies and  those  of  his  daughters  was  an  exten- 
sion of  the  field  of  possible  mistakes ;  and  the 
doctrine,  as  it  may  almost  be  called,  of  the  op- 
pressive gravity  of  mistakes  was  one  of  the  most 
cherished  traditions  of  the  Wentworth  family. 

"  I  don't  believe  she  wants  to  come  and  stay  in 
this  house,"  said  Gertrude;  Madame  Minister, 
from  this  time  forward,  receiving  no  other  desig- 
nation than  the  personal  pronoun.  Charlotte  and 
Gertrude  acquired  considerable  facility  in  address- 
ing her,  directly,  as  "  Eugenia  ;  "  but  in  speaking 
of  her  to  each  other  they  rarely  called  her  any- 
thing but  "  she." 

"  Does  n't  she  think  it  good  enough  for  her?  " 
cried  little  Lizzie  Acton,  who  was  always  asking 
unpractical  questions  that  required,  in  strictness, 
no  answer,  and  to  which  indeed  she  expected  no 
other  answer  than  such  as  she  herself  invariably 
furnished  in  a  small,  innocently-satirical  laugh. 

"  She  certainly  expressed  a  willingness  to  come," 
said  Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  That  was  only  politeness,"  Gertrude  rejoined. 

"  Yes,  she  is  very  polite  —  very  polite,"  said 
Mr.  Wentworth. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  69 

"  She  is  too  polite,"  his  son  declared,  in  a  softly 
growling  tone  which  was  habitual  to  him,  but 
which  was  an  indication  of  nothing  worse  than  a 
vaguely  humorous  intention.  "  It  is  very  embar- 
rassing." 

"  That  is  more  than  can  be  said  of  you,  sir," 
said  Lizzie  Acton,  with  her  Uttle  laugh. 

"  Well,  I  don't  mean  to  encourage  her,"  Clifford 
went  on. 

"  I  'm  sure  I  don't  care  if  you  do  !  "  cried  Liz- 
zie. 

"  She  will  not  think  of  you,  Clifford,"  said  Ger- 
trude, gravely. 

"  I  hope  not !  "  Clifford  exclaimed. 

"She  will  think  of  Robert,"  Gertrude  contin- 
ued, in  the  same  tone. 

Robert  Acton  began  to  blush ;  but  there  was 
no  occasion  for  it,  for  every  one  was  looking  at 
Gertrude  —  every  one,  at  least,  save  Lizzie,  who, 
with  her  pretty  head  on  one  side,  contemplated 
her  brother. 

"  Why  do  you  attribute  motives,  Gertrude  ?  " 
asked  Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  I  don't  attribute  motives,  father,"  said  Ger- 
trude. "  I  only  say  she  will  think  of  Robert ;  and 
she  will !  " 

"  Gertrude  judges  by  herself !  "  Acton  ex- 
claimed, laughing.  "  Don't  you,  Gertrude  ?  Of 


70  THE  EUROPEANS. 

course  the  Baroness  will  think  of  me.  She  will 
think  of  me  from  morning  till  night." 

"  She  will  be  very  comfortable  here,"  said  Char- 
lotte, with  something  of  a  housewife's  pride.  "  She 
can  have  the  large  northeast  room.  And  the 
French  bedstead,"  Charlotte  added,  with  a  con- 
stant sense  of  the  lady's  foreignness. 

"  She  will  not  like  it,"  said  Gertrude  ;  "  not 
even  if  you  pin  little  tidies  all  over  the  chairs." 

"  Why  not,  dear  ?  "  asked  Charlotte,  perceiving 
a  touch  of  irony  here,  but  not  resenting  it. 

Gertrude  had  left  her  chair ;  she  was  walking 
about  the  room ;  her  stiff  silk  dress,  which  she  had 
put  on  in  honor  of  the  Baroness,  made  a  sound 
upon  the  carpet.  "I  don't  know,"  she  replied. 
"  She  will  want  something  more  —  more  private." 

"  If  she  wants  to  be  private  she  can  stay  in  her 
room,"  Lizzie  Acton  remarked. 

Gertrude  paused  in  her  walk,  looking  at  her. 
"  That  would  not  be  pleasant,"  she  answered. 
"  She  wants  privacy  and  pleasure  together." 

Robert  Acton  began  to  laugh  again.  "  My  dear 
cousin,  what  a  picture !  " 

Charlotte  had  fixed  her  serious  eyes  upon  her 
sister ;  she  wondered  whence  she  had  suddenly 
derived  these  strange  notions.  Mr.  Wentworth 
also  observed  his  younger  daughter. 

"  I  don't   know  what  her  manner  of  life  may 


THE  EUROPEANS.  71 

have  been,"  he  said ;  "  but  she  certainly  never 
can  have  enjoyed  a  more  refined  and  salubrious 
home." 

Gertrude  stood  there  looking  at  them  all.  "  She 
is  the  wife  of  a  Prince,"  she  said. 

"  We  are  all  princes  here,"  said  Mr.  Went- 
worth ;  "  and  I  don't  know  of  any  palace  in  this 
neighborhood  that  is  to  let." 

"  Cousin  William,"  Robert  Acton  interposed, 
"  do  you  want  to  do  something  handsome  ?  Make 
them  a  present,  for  three  months,  of  the  little 
house  over  the  way." 

"  You  are  very  generous  with  other  people's 
things  !  "  cried  his  sister. 

"  Robert  is  very  generous  with  his  own  things," 
Mr.  Wentworth  observed  dispassionately,  and 
looking,  in  cold  meditation,  at  his  kinsman. 

"  Gertrude,"  Lizzie  went  on,  "  I  had  an  idea 
you  were  so  fond  of  your  new  cousin." 

"  Which  new  cousin  ?  "  asked  Gertrude. 

"  I  don't  mean  the  Baroness  !  "  the  young  girl 
rejoined,  with  her  laugh.  "  I  thought  you  ex- 
pected to  see  so  much  of  him." 

"  Of  Felix?  I  hope  to  see  a  great  deal  of  him," 
said  Gertrude,  simply. 

"  Then  why  do  you  want  to  keep  him  out  of 
the  house  ?  " 

Gertrude  looked  at  Lizzie  Acton,  and  then 
looked  away. 


72  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Should  you  want  me  to  live  in  the  house  with 
you,  Lizzie?"  asked  Clifford. 

"  I  hope  you  never  will.  I  hate  you!  "  Such 
was  this  young  lady's  reply. 

"  Father,"  said  Gertrude,  stopping  before  Mr. 
Wentworth  and  smiling,  with  a  smile  the  sweeter, 
as  her  smile  always  was,  for  its  rarity ;  "  do  let 
them  live  in  the  little  house  over  the  way.  It  will 
be  lovely !  " 

Robert  Acton  had  been  watching  her.  "  Ger- 
trude is  right,"  he  said.  "  Gertrude  is  the  clever- 
est girl  in  the  world.  If  I  might  take  the  liberty, 
I  should  strongly  recommend  their  living  there." 

"  There  is  nothing  there  so  pretty  as  the  north- 
east room,"  Charlotte  urged. 

"  She  will  make  it  pretty.  Leave  her  alone  !  " 
Acton  exclaimed. 

Gertrude,  at  his  compliment,  had  blushed  and 
looked  at  him  :  it  was  as  if  some  one  less  familiar 
had  complimented  her.  "  I  am  sure  she  will  make 
it  pretty.  ,It  will  be  very  interesting.  It  will  be 
a  place  to  go  to.  It  will  be  a  foreign  house." 

"  Are  we  very  sure  that  we  need  a  foreign 
house  ? "  Mr.  Wentworth  inquired.  "  Do  you 
think  it  desirable  to  establish  a  foreign  house  —  in 
this  quiet  place  ?  " 

"  You  speak,"  said  Acton,  laughing,  "  as  if  it 
were  a  question  of  the  poor  Baroness  opening  a 
wine-shop  or  a  gaming-table." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  73 

"  It  would  be  too  lovely !  "  Gertrude  declared 
again,  laying  her  hand  on  the  back  of  her  father's 
chair. 

"  That  she  should  open  a  gaming-table  ? " 
Charlotte  asked,  with  great  gravity. 

Gertrude  looked  at  her  a  moment,  and  then, 
"  Yes,  Charlotte,"  she  said,  simply. 

"  Gertrude  is  growing  pert,"  Clifford  Wentworth 
observed,  with  his  humorous  young  growl.  "  That 
comes  of  associating  with  foreigners." 

Mr.  Wentworth  looked  up  at  his  daughter,  who 
was  standing  beside  him  ;  he  drew  her  gently 
forward.  "  You  must  be  careful,"  he  said.  "  You 
must  keep  watch.  Indeed,  we  must  all  be  careful. 
This  is  a  great  change  ;  we  are  to  be  exposed  to 
peculiar  influences  I  don't  say  they  are  bad.  I 
don't  judge  them  in  advance.  But  they  may  per- 
haps make  it  necessary  that  we  should  exercise  a 
great  deal  of  wisdom  and  self-control.  It  will  be 
a  different  tone." 

Gertrude  was  silent  a  moment,  in  deference  to 
her  father's  speech  ;  then,  she  spoke  in  a  manner 
that  was  not  in  the  least  an  answer  to  it.  "  I 
want  to  see  how  they  will  live.  I  am  sure  they 
will  have  different  hours.  She  will  do  all  kinds 
of  little  things  differently.  When  we  go  over 
there  it  will  be  like  going  to  Europe.  She  will 
have  a  boudoir.  She  will  invite  us  to  dinner  — 
very  late.  She  will  breakfast  in  her  room." 


74  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Charlotte  gazed  at  her  sister  again.  Gertrude's 
imagination  seemed  to  her  to  be  fairly  running 
riot.  She  had  always  known  that  Gertrude  had 
a  great  deal  of  imagination  —  she  had  been  very 
proud  of  it.  But  at  the  same  time  she  had  always 
felt  that  it  was  a  dangerous  and  irresponsible  fac- 
ulty; and  now,  to  her  sense,  for  the  moment,  it 
seemed  to  threaten  to  make  her  sister  a  strange 
person  who  should  come  in  suddenly,  as  from  a 
journey,  talking  of  the  peculiar  and  possibly  un- 
pleasant things  she  had  observed.  Charlotte's 
imagination  took  no  journeys  whatever ;  she  kept 
it,  as  it  were,  in  her  pocket,  with  the  other  furni- 
ture of  this  receptacle  —  a  thimble,  a  little  box 
of  peppermint,  and  a  morsel  of  court-plaster.  "  I 
don't  believe  she  would  have  any  dinner — or  any 
breakfast,"  said  Miss  Wentworth.  "  I  don't  be- 
lieve she  knows  how  to  do  anything  herself.  I 
should  have  to  get  her  ever  so  many  servants,  and 
she  would  n't  like  them." 

"  She  has  a  maid,"  said  Gertrude  ;  "  a  French 
maid.  She  mentioned  her." 

"  I  wonder  if  the  maid  has  a  little  fluted  cap 
and  red  slippers,"  said  Lizzie  Acton.  "  There 
was  a  French  maid  in  that  play  that  Robert  took 
me  to  see.  She  had  pink  stockings  ;  she  was  very 
wicked." 

44  She  was   a   soubrette"  Gertrude   announced, 


THE  EUROPEANS.  75 

who  had  never  seen  a  play  in  her  life.  "  They 
call  that  a  soubrette.  It  will  be  a  great  chance 
to  learn  French."  Charlotte  gave  a  little  soft, 
helpless  groan.  She  had  a  vision  of  a  wicked, 
theatrical  person,  clad  in  pink  stockings  and  red 
shoes,  and  speaking,  with  confounding  volubility, 
an  incomprehensible  tongue,  flitting  through  the 
sacred  penetralia  of  that  large,  clean  house.  "  That 
is  one  reason  in  favor  of  their  coming  here,"  Ger- 
trude went  on.  "  But  we  can  make  Eugenia  speak 
French  to  us,  and  Felix.  I  mean  to  begin  —  the 
next  time." 

Mr.  Wentworth  had  kept  her  standing  near 
him,  and  he  gave  her  his  earnest,  thin,  unrespon- 
sive glance  again.  "  I  want  you  to  make  me  a 
promise,  Gertrude,"  he  said. 

"  What  is  it?  "  she  asked,  smiling. 

"  Not  to  get  excited.  Not  to  allow  these  — 
these  occurrences  to  be  an  occasion  for  excite- 
ment." 

She  looked  down  at  him  a  moment,  and  then 
she  shook  her  head.  "  I  don't  think  I  can  promise 
that,  father.  I  am  excited  already." 

Mr.  Wentworth  was  silent  a  while ;  they  all 
were  silent,  as  if  in  recognition  of  something  auda- 
cious and  portentous. 

"I  think  they  had  better  go  to  the  other  house," 
said  Charlotte,  quietly. 


76  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  I  shall  keep  them  in  the  other  house,"  Mr. 
Wentworth  subjoined,  more  pregnantly. 

Gertrude  turned  away;  then  she  looked  across 
at  Robert  Acton.  Her  cousin  Robert  was  a  great 
friend  of  hers  ;  she  often  looked  at  him  this  way 
instead  of  saying  things.  Pier  glance  on  this  occa- 
sion, however,  struck  him  as  a  substitute  for  a 
larger  volume  of  diffident  utterance  than  usual  in- 
viting him  to  observe,  among  other  things,  the 
inefficiency  of  her  father's  design  —  if  design  it 
was  —  for  diminishing,  in  the  interest  of  quiet 
nerves,  their  occasions  of  contact  with  their  for- 
eign relatives.  But  Acton  immediately  com- 
plimented Mr.  Wentworth  upon  his  liberality. 
"  That 's  a  very  nice  thing  to  do,"  he  said,  "  giv- 
ing them  the  little  house.  You  will  have  treated 
them  handsomely,  and,  whatever  happens,  you 
will  be  glad  of  it."  Mr.  Wentworth  was  liberal, 
and  he  knew  he  was  liberal.  It  gave  him  pleas- 
ure to  know  it,  to  feel  it,  to  see  it  recorded ;  and 
this  pleasure  is  the  only  palpable  form  of  self- 
indulgence  with  which  the  narrator  of  these  inci- 
dents will  be  able  to  charge  him. 

"  A  three  days'  visit  at  most,  over  there,  is  all 
I  should  have  found  possible,"  Madame  Munster 
remarked  to  her  brother,  after  they  had  taken 
possession  of  the  little  white  house.  "  It  would 
have  been  too  intime  —  decidedly  too  intime. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  77 

Breakfast,  dinner,  and  tea  en  famille  —  it  would 
have  been  the  end  of  the  world  if  I  could  have 
reached  the  third  day."  And  she  made  the  same 
observation  to  her  maid  Augustine,  an  intelligent 
person,  who  enjoyed  a  liberal  share  of  her  confi- 
dence. Felix  declared  that  he  would  willingly 
spend  his  life  in  the  bosom  of  the  Went  worth 
family ;  that  they  were  the  kindest,  simplest,  most 
amiable  people  in  the  world,  and  that  he  had 
taken  a  prodigious  fancy  to  them  all.  The  Bar- 
oness quite  agreed  with  him  that  they  were  simple 
and  kind ;  they  were  thoroughly  nice  people,  and 
she  liked  them  extremely.  The  girls  were  per- 
fect ladies  ;  it  was  impossible  to  be  more  of  a  lady 
than  Charlotte  Wentworth,  in  spite  of  her  little 
village  air.  "  But  as  for  thinking  them  the  best 
company  in  the  world,"  said  the  Baroness,  "  that 
is  another  thing ;  and  as  for  wishing  to  live  porte 
a  porte  with  them,  I  should  as  soon  think  of  wish- 
ing myself  back  in  the  convent  again,  to  wear  a 
bombazine  apron  and  sleep  in  a  dormitory."  And 
yet  the  Baroness  was. in  high  good  humor;  she 
had  been  very  much  pleased.  With  her  lively 
perception  and  her  refined  imagination,  she  was 
capable  of  enjoying  anything  that  was  character- 
istic, anything  that  was  good  of  its  kind.  The 
Wentworth  household  seemed  to  her  very  perfect 
in  its  kind  —  wonderfully  peaceful  and  unspotted ; 


78  THE  EUROPEANS. 

pervaded  by  a  sort  of  dove-colored  freshness  that 
had  all  the  quietude  and  benevolence  of  what  she 
deemed  to  be  Quakerism,  and  yet  seemed  to  be 
founded  upon  a  degree  of  material  abundance  for 
which,  in  certain  matters  of  detail,  one  might  have 
looked  in  vain  at  the  frugal  little  court  of  Silber- 
stadt-Schrecken stein.  She  perceived  immediately 
that  her  American  relatives  thought  and  talked 
very  little  about  money ;  and  this  of  itself  made  an 
impression  upon  Eugenia's  imagination.  She  per- 
ceived at  the  same  time  that  if  Charlotte  or  Ger- 
trude should  ask  their  father  for  a  very  considerable 
sum  he  would  at  once  place  it  in  their  hands  ;  and 
this  made  a  still  greater  impression.  The  greatest 
impression  of  all,  perhaps,  was  made  by  another 
rapid  induction.  The  Baroness  had  an  immediate 
conviction  that  Robert  Acton  would  put  his  hand 
into  his  pocket  every  day  in  the  week  if  that 
rattle-pated  little  sister  of  his  should  bid  him. 
The  men  in  this  country,  said  the  Baroness,  are 
evidently  very  obliging.  Her  declaration  that  she 
was  looking  for  rest  and  retirement  had  been  by 
no  means  wholly  untrue  ;  nothing  that  the  Bar- 
oness said  was  wholly  untrue.  It  is  but  fair  to 
add,  perhaps,  that  nothing  that  she  said  was 
wholly  true.  She  wrote  to  a  friend  in  Germany 
that  it  was  a  return  to  nature  ;  it  was  like  drink- 
ing new  milk,  and  she  was  very  fond  of  new 


THE  EUROPEANS.  79 

milk.  She  said  to  herself,  of  course,  that  it  would 
be  a  little  dull ;  but  there  can  be  no  better  proof 
of  her  good  spirits  than  the  fact  that  she  thought 
she  should  not  mind  its  being  a  little  dull.  It 
seemed  to  her,  when  from  the  piazza  of  her  elee- 
mosynary cottage  she  looked  out  over  the  sound- 
less fields,  the  stony  pastures,  the  clear-faced 
ponds,  the  rugged  little  orchards,  that  she  had 
never  been  in  the  midst  of  so  peculiarly  intense  a 
stillness  ;  it  was  almost  a  delicate  sensual  pleasure. 
It  was  all  very  good,  very  innocent  and  safe,  and 
out  of  it  something  good  must  come.  Augustine, 
indeed,  who  had  an  unbounded  faith  in  her  mis- 
tress's wisdom  and  far-sightedness,  was  a  great 
deal  perplexed  and  depressed.  She  was  always 
ready  to  take  her  cue  when  she  understood  it ; 
but  she  liked  to  understand  it,  and  on  this  occa- 
sion comprehension  failed.  What,  indeed,  was 
the  Baroness  doing  dans  cette  galere  ?  what  fish 
did  she  expect  to  land  out  of  these  very  stagnant 
waters  ?  The  game  was  evidently  a  deep  one. 
Augustine  could  trust  her  ;  but  the  sense  of  walk- 
ing in  the  dark  betrayed  itself  in  the  physiognomy 
of  this  spare,  sober,  sallow,  middle-aged  person, 
who  had  nothing  in  common  with  Gertrude  Went- 
worth's  conception  of  a  soubrette,  by  the  most 
ironical  scowl  that  had  ever  rested  upon  the  un- 
pretending tokens  of  the  peace  and  plenty  of 


80  THE  EUROPEANS. 

the  Wentworths.  Fortunately,  Augustine  could 
quench  skepticism  in  action.  She  quite  agreed 
with  her  mistress  —  or  rather  she  quite  outstripped 
her  mistress  —  in  thinking  that  the  little  white 
house  was  pitifully  bare.  "  II  faudra,"  said  Au- 
gustine, "  lui  faire  un  peu  de  toilette."  And  she 
began  to  hang  up  portieres t  in  the  doorways;  to 
place  wax  candles,  procured  after  some  research, 
in  unexpected  situations  ;  to  dispose  anomalous 
draperies  over  the  arms  of  sofas  and  the  backs  of 
chairs.  The  Baroness  had  brought  with  her  to 
the  New  World  a  copious  provision  of  the  element 
of  costume ;  and  the  two  Miss  Wentworths,  when 
they  came  over  to  see  her,  were  somewhat  bewild- 
ered by  the  obtrusive  distribution  of  her  ward- 
robe. There  were  India  shawls  suspended,  cur- 
tain-wise, in  the  parlor  door,  and  curious  fabrics, 
corresponding  to  Gertrude's  metaphysical  vision 
of  an  opera-cloak,  tumbled  about  in  the  sitting- 
places.  There  were  pink  silk  blinds  in  the  win- 
dows, by  which  the  room  was  strangely  bedimmed ; 
and  along  the  chimney-piece  was  disposed  a  re- 
markable band  of  velvet,  covered  with  coarse, 
dirty-looking  lace.  "  I  have  been  making  myself 
a  little  comfortable,"  said  the  Baroness,  much  to 
the  confusion  of  Charlotte,  who  had  been  on  the 
point  of  proposing  to  come  and  help  her  put  her 
superfluous  draperies  away.  But  what  Charlotte 


THE  EUROPEANS.  81 

mistook  for  an  almost  culpably  delayed  subsidence 
Gertrude  very  presently  perceived  to  be  the  most 
ingenious,  the  most  interesting,  the  most  romantic 
intention.  "What  is  life,  indeed,  without  cur- 
tains ?  "  she  secretly  asked  herself  ;  and  she  ap- 
peared to  herself  to  have  been  leading  hitherto  an 
existence  singularly  garish  and  totally  devoid  of 
festoons. 

Felix  was  not  a  young  man  who  troubled  him- 
self greatly  about  anything  —  least  of  all  about  the 
conditions  of  enjoyment.  His  faculty  of  enjoy- 
ment was  so  large,  so  unconsciously  eager,  that  it 
may  be  said  of  it  that  it  had  a  permanent  ad- 
vance upon  embarrassment  and  sorrow.  His  sen- 
tient faculty  was  intrinsically  joyous,  and  novelty 
and  change  were  in  themselves  a  delight  to  him. 
As  they  had  come  to  him  with  a  great  deal  of  fre- 
quency, his  life  had  been  more  agreeable  than 
appeared.  Never  was  a  nature  more  perfectly 
fortunate.  It  was  not  a  restless,  apprehensive, 
ambitious  spirit,  running  a  race  with  the  tyranny 
of  fate,  but  a  temper  so  unsuspicious  as  to  put 
Adversity  off  her  guard,  dodging  and  evading  her 
with  the  easy,  natural  motion  of  a  wind-shifted 
flower.  Felix  extracted  entertainment  from  all 
things,  and  all  his  faculties  —  his  imagination,  his 
intelligence,  his  affections,  his  senses  —  had  a  hand 
in  the  game.  It  seemed  to  him  that  Eugenia  and 


82  THE  EUROPEANS. 

he  had  been  very  well  treated ;  there  was  some- 
thing absolutely  touching  in  that  combination  of 
paternal  liberality  and  social  considerateness  which 
marked  Mr.  Wentworth's  deportment.  It  was 
most  uncommonly  kind  of  him,  for  instance,  to 
have  given  them  a  house.  Felix  was  positively 
amused  at  having  a  house  of  his  own ;  for  the  lit- 
tle white  cottage  among  the  apple-trees  —  the  cha- 
let, as  Madame  Miinster  always  called  it  —  was 
much  more  sensibly  his  own  than  any  domiciliary 
quatrieme,  looking  upon  a  court,  with  the  rent 
overdue.  Felix  had  spent  a  good  deal  of  his  life 
in  looking  into  courts,  with  a  perhaps  slightly  tat- 
tered pair  of  elbows  resting  upon  the  ledge  of 
a  high-perched  window,  and  the  thin  smoke  of 
a  cigarette  rising  into  an  atmosphere  in  which 
street-cries  died  away  and  the  vibration  of  chimes 
from  ancient  belfries  became  sensible.  He  had 
never  known  anything  so  infinitely  rural  as  these 
New  England  fields  ;  and  he  took  a  great  fancy  to 
all  their  pastoral  roughnesses.  He  had  never  had 
a  greater  sense  of  luxurious  security ;  and  at  the 
risk  of  making  him  seem  a  rather  sordid  advent- 
urer I  must  declare  that  he  found  an  irresistible 
charm  in  the  fact  that  he  might  dine  every  day 
at  his  uncle's.  The  charm  was  irresistible,  how- 
ever, because  his  fancy  flung  a  rosy  light  over  this 
homely  privilege.  He  appreciated  highly  the  fare 


THE  EUROPEANS.  83 

that  was  set  before  him.  There  was  a  kind  of 
fresh-looking  abundance  about  it  which  made  him 
think  that  people  must  have  lived  so  in  the  myth- 
ological era,  when  they  spread  their  tables  upon 
the  grass,  replenished  them  from  cornucopias,  and 
had  no  particular  need  of  kitchen  stoves.  But  the 
great  thing  that  Felix  enjoyed  was  having  found 
a  family  —  sitting  in  the  midst  of  gentle,  generous 
people  whom  he  might  call  by  their  first  names. 
He  had  never  known  anything  more  charming 
than  the  attention  they  paid  to  what  he  said.  It 
was  like  a  large  sheet  of  clean,  fine-grained  draw- 
ing-paper, all  ready  to  be  washed  over  with  effect- 
ive splashes  of  water-color.  He  had  never  had 
any  cousins,  and  he  had  never  before  found  him- 
self in  contact  so  unrestricted  with  young  unmar- 
ried ladies.  He  was  extremely  fond  of  the  society 
of  ladies,  and  it  was  new  to  him  that  it  might  be 
enjoyed  in  just  this  manner.  At  first  he  hardly 
knew  what  to  make  of  his  state  of  mind.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  he  was  in  love,  indiscrimi- 
nately, with  three  girls  at  once.  He  saw  that 
Lizzie  Acton  was  more  brilliantly  pretty  than 
Charlotte  and  Gertrude  ;  but  this  was  scarcely  a 
superiority.  His  pleasure  came  from  something 
they  had  in  common  —  a  part  of  which  was,  in- 
deed, that  physical  delicacy  which  seemed  to  make 
it  proper  that  they  should  always  dress  in  thin 


84  THE  EUROPEANS. 

materials  and  clear  colors.  But  they  were  deli- 
cate in  other  ways,  and  it  was  most  agreeable  to 
him  to  feel  that  these  latter  delicacies  were  appre- 
ciable by  contact,  as  it  were.  He  had  known, 
fortunately,  many  virtuous  gentlewomen,  but  it 
now  appeared  to  him  that  in  his  relations  with 
them  (especially  when  they  were  unmarried)  he 
had  been  looking  at  pictures  under  glass.  He  per- 
ceived at  present  what  a  nuisance  the  glass  had 
been  —  how  it  perverted  and  interfered,  how  it 
caught  the  reflection  of  other  objects  and  kept  you 
walking  from  side  to  side.  He  had  no  need  to  ask 
himself  whether  Charlotte  and  Gertrude,  and  Liz- 
zie Acton,  were  in  the  right  light ;  they  were  al- 
ways in  the  right  light.  He  liked  everything 
about  them  :  he  was,  for  instance,  not  at  all  above 
liking  the  fact  that  they  had  very  slender  feet  and 
high  insteps.  He  liked  their  pretty  noses;  he 
liked  their  surprised  eyes  and  their  hesitating,  not 
at  all  positive  way  of  speaking ;  he  liked  so  much 
knowing  that  he  was  perfectly  at  liberty  to  be 
alone  for  hours,  anywhere,  with  either  of  them; 
that  preference  for  one  to  the  other,  as  a  compan- 
ion of  solitude,  remained  a  minor  affair.  Char- 
lotte Wentworth's  sweetly  severe  features  were  as 
agreeable  as  Lizzie  Acton's  wonderfully  express- 
ive blue  eyes ;  and  Gertrude's  air  of  being  always 
ready  to  walk  about  and  listen  was  as  charming  as 


THE  EUROPEANS.  85 

anything  else,  especially  as  she  walked  very  grace- 
fully. After  a  while  Felix  began  to  distinguish  ; 
but  even  then  he  would  often  wish,  suddenly,  that 
they  were  not  all  so  sad.  Even  Lizzie  Acton,  in 
spite  of  her  fine  little  chatter  and  laughter,  ap- 
peared sad.  Even  Clifford  Wentworth,  who  had 
extreme  youth  in  his  favor,  and  kept  a  buggy  with 
enormous  wheels  and  a  little  sorrel  mare  with  the 
prettiest  legs  in  the  world  —  even  this  fortunate 
lad  was  apt  to  have  an  averted,  uncomfortable 
glance,  and  to  edge  away  from  you  at  times,  in 
the  manner  of  a  person  with  a  bad  •  conscience. 
The  only  person  in  the  circle  with  no  sense  of  op- 
pression of  any  kind  was,  to  Felix's  perception, 
Robert  Acton. 

It  might  perhaps  have  been  feared  that  after  the 
completion  of  those  graceful  domiciliary  embellish- 
ments which  have  been  mentioned  Madame  Mun- 
ster  would  have  found  herself  confronted  with 
alarming  possibilities  of  ennui.  But  as  yet  she 
had  not  taken  the  alarm.  The  Baroness  was  a 
restless  soul,  and  she  projected  her  restlessness,  as 
it  may  be  said,  into  any  situation  that  lay  before 
her.  Up  to  a  certain  point  her  restlessness  might 
be  counted  upon  to  entertain  her.  She  was  al- 
ways expecting  something  to  happen,  and,  until  it 
was  disappointed,  expectancy  itself  was  a  delicate 
pleasure.  What  the  Baroness  expected  just  now 


86  THE  EUROPEANS. 

it  would  take  some  ingenuity  to  set  forth  ;  it  is 
enough  that  while  she  looked  about  her  she  found 
something  to  occupy  her  imagination.  She  as- 
sured herself  that  she  was  enchanted  with  her  new 
relatives ;  she  professed  to  herself  that,  like  her 
brother,  she  felt  it  a  sacred  satisfaction  to  have 
found  a  family.  It  is  certain  that  she  enjoyed  to 
the  utmost  the  gentleness  of  her  kinsfolk's  defer- 
ence. She  had,  first  and  last,  received  a  great 
deal  of  admiration,  and  her  experience  of  well- 
turned  compliments  was  very  considerable ;  but 
she  knew  that  she  had  never  been  so  real  a  power, 
never  counted  for  so  much,  as  now  when,  for  the 
first  time,  the  standard  of  comparison  of  her  little 
circle  was  a  prey  to  vagueness.  The  sense,  indeed, 
that  the  good  people  about  her  had,  as  regards  her 
remarkable  self,  no  standard  of  comparison  at  all 
gave  her  a  feeling  of  almost  illimitable  power.  It 
was  true,  as  she  said  to  herself,  that  if  for  this  rea- 
son they  would  .be  able  to  discover  nothing  against 
her,  so  they  would  perhaps  neglect  to  perceive 
some  of  her  superior  points ;  but  she  always  wound 
up  her  reflections  by  declaring  that  she  would  take 
care  of  that. 

Charlotte  and  Gertrude  were  in  some  perplexity 
between  their  desire  to  show  all  proper  attention 
to  Madame  Miinster  and  their  fear  of  being  im- 
portunate. The  little  house  in  the  orchard  had 


THE  EUROPEANS.  87 

hitherto  been  occupied  during  the  summer  months 
by  intimate  friends  of  the  family,  or  by  poor  rela- 
tions who  found  in  Mr.  Wentworth  a  landlord  at- 
tentive to  repairs  and  oblivious  of  quarter-day. 
Under  these  circumstances  the  open  door  of  the 
small  house  and  that  of  the  large  one,  facing  each 
other  across  their  homely  gardens,  levied  no  tax 
upon  hourly  visits.  But  the  Misses  Wentworth 
received  an  impression  that  Eugenia  was  no  friend 
to  the  primitive  custom  of  "  dropping  in ;  "  she 
evidently  had  no  idea  of  living  without  a  door- 
keeper. "  One  goes  into  your  house  as  into  an 
inn  —  except  that  there  are  no  servants  rushing 
forward,"  she  said  to  Charlotte.  And  she  added 
that  that  was  very  charming.  Gertrude  explained 
to  her  sister  that  she  meant  just  the  reverse  ;  she 
did  n't  like  it  at  all.  Charlotte  inquired  why  she 
should  tell  an  untruth,  and  Gertrude  answered 
that  there  was  probably  some  very  good  reason  for 
it  which  they  should  discover  when  they  knew  her 
better.  "  There  can  surely  be  no  good  reason  for 
telling  an  untruth,"  said  Charlotte.  "  I  hope  she 
does  not  think  so." 

They  had  of  course  desired,  from  the  first,  to  do 
everything  in  the  way  of  helping  her  to  arrange 
herself.  It  had  seemed  to  Charlotte  that  there 
would  be  a  great  many  things  to  talk  about ;  but 
the  Baroness  was  apparently  inclined  to  talk  about 
nothing. 


88  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Write  her  a  note,  asking  her  leave  to  come 
and  see  her.  I  think  that  is  what  she  will  like," 
said  Gertrude. 

"  Why  should  I  give  her  the  trouble  of  answer- 
ing me?"  Charlotte  asked.  "She  will  have  to 
write  a  note  and  send  it  over." 

"I  don't  think  she  will  take  any  trouble,"  said 
Gertrude,  profoundly. 

"  What  then  will  she  do  ?  " 

"  That  is  what  I  am  curious  to  see,"  said  Ger- 
trude, leaving  her  sister  with  an  impression  that 
her  curiosity  was  morbid. 

They  went  to  see  the  Baroness  without  pre- 
liminary correspondence  ;  and  in  the  little  salon 
which  she  had  already  created,  with  its  becoming 
light  and  its  festoons,  they  found  Robert  Acton. 

Eugenia  was  intensely  gracious,  but  she  accused 
them  of  neglecting  her  cruelly.  "  You  see  Mr. 
Acton  has  had  to  take  pity  upon  me,"  she  said. 
"  My  brother  goes  off  sketching,  for  hours  ;  I  can 
never  depend  upon  him.  So  I  was  to  send  Mr. 
Acton  to  beg  you  to  come  and  give  me  the  benefit 
of  your  wisdom." 

Gertrude  looked  at  her  sister.  She  wanted  to 
say,  "  That  is  what  she  would  have  done."  Char- 
lotte said  that  they  hoped  the  Baroness  would 
always  come  and  dine  with  them  ;  it  would  give 
them  so  much  pleasure  ;  and,  in  that  case,  she 
would  spare  herself  the  trouble  of  having  a  cook. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  89 

"  Ah,  but  I  must  have  a  cook  !  "  cried  the  Bar- 
oness. "  An  old  negress  in  a  yellow  turban.  I 
have  set  my  heart  upon  that.  I  want  to  look  out 
of  my  window  and  see  her  sitting  there  on  the 
grass,  against  the  background  of  those  crooked, 
dusky  little  apple-trees,  pulling  the  husks  off  a 
lapful  of  Indian  corn.  That  will  be  local  color, 
you  know.  There  is  n't  much  of  it  here  —  you 
don't  mind  my  saying  that,  do  you  ?  —  so  one 
must  make  the  most  of  what  one  can  get.  I  shall 
be  most  happy  to  dine  with  you  whenever  you  will 
let  me ;  but  I  want  to  be  able  to  ask  you  some- 
times. And  I  want  to  be  able  to  ask  Mr.  Acton," 
added  the  Baroness. 

"You  must  come  and  ask  me  at  home,"  said 
Acton.  "  You  must  come  and  see  me ;  you  must 
dine  with  me  first.  I  want  to  show  you  my  place ; 
I  want  to  introduce  you  to  my  mother."  He 
called  again  upon  Madame  Miinster,  two  days 
later.  He  was  constantly  at  the  other  house;  he 
used  to  walk  across  the  fields  from  his  own  place, 
and  he  appeared  to  have  fewer  scruples  than  his 
cousins  with  regard  to  dropping  in.  On  this  oc- 
casion he  found  that  Mr.  Brand  had  come  to  pay 
his  respects  to  the  charming  stranger ;  but  after 
Acton's  arrival  the  young  theologian  said  nothing. 
He  sat  in  his  chair  with  his  two  hands  clasped, 
fixing  upon  his  hostess  a  grave,  fascinated  stare. 


90  THE  EUROPEANS. 

The  Baroness  talked  to  Robert  Acton,  but,  as  she 
talked,  she  turned  and  smiled  at  Mr.  Brand,  who 
never  took  his  eyes  off  her.  The  two  men  walked 
away  together ;  they  were  going  to  Mr.  Went- 
worth's.  Mr.  Brand  still  said  nothing  ;  but  after 
they  had  passed  into  Mr.  Wentworth's  garden  he 
stopped  and  looked  back  for  some  time  at  the  lit- 
tle white  house.  Then,  looking  at  his  companion, 
with  his  head  bent  a  little  to  one  side  and  his  eyes 
somewhat  contracted,  "  Now  I  suppose  that 's  what 
is  called  conversation,"  he  said;  "real  conversa- 
tion." 

"  It 's  what  I  call  a  very  clever  woman,"  said 
Acton,  laughing. 

"  It  is  most  interesting,"  Mr.  Brand  continued. 
"  I  only  wish  she  would  speak  French ;  it  would 
seem  more  in  keeping.  It  must  be  quite  the  style 
that  we  have  heard  about,  that  we  have  read  about 
—  the  style  of  conversation  of  Madame  de  Stael, 
of  Madame  R^camier." 

Acton  also  looked  at  Madame  Miinster's  resi- 
dence among  its  hollyhocks  and  apple-trees. 
"  What  I  should  like  to  know,"  he  said,  smiling, 
"  is  just  what  has  brought  Madame  Re"camier  to 
live  in  that  place !  " 


V. 

MB.  WENTWORTH,  with  his  cane  and  his  gloves 
in  his  hand,  went  every  afternoon  to  call  upon 
his  niece.  A  couple  of  hours  later  she  came  over 
to  the  great  house  to  tea.  She  had  let  the  pro- 
posal that  she  should  regularly  dine  there  fall  to 
the  ground ;  she  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  what- 
ever satisfaction  was  to  be  derived  from  the  spec- 
tacle of  an  old  negress  in  a  crimson  turban  shell- 
ing peas  under  the  apple-trees.  Charlotte,  who 
had  provided  the  ancient  negress,  thought  it  must 
be  a  strange  household,  Eugenia  having  told  her 
that  Augustine  managed  everything,  the  ancient 
negress  included  —  Augustine  who  was  naturally 
devoid  of  all  acquaintance  with  the  expurgatory 
English  tongue.  By  far  the  most  immoral  senti- 
ment which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  attribute  to 
Charlotte  Wentworth  was  a  certain  emotion  of 
disappointment  at  finding  that,  in  spite  of  these 
irregular  conditions,  the  domestic  arrangements  at 
the  small  house  were  apparently  not  —  from  Eu- 
genia's peculiar  point  of  view  —  strikingly  offen- 
sive. The  Baroness  found  it  amusing  to  go  to 


92  THE  EUROPEANS. 

tea ;  she  dressed  as  if  for  dinner.  The  tea-table 
offered  an  anomalous  and  picturesque  repast ;  and 
on  leaving  it  they  all  sat  and  talked  in  the  large 
piazza,  or  wandered  about  the  garden  in  the  star- 
light, with  their  ears  full  of  those  sounds  of  strange 
insects  which,  though  they  are  supposed  to  be,  all 
over  the  world,  a  part  of  the  magic  of  summer 
nights,  seemed  to  the  Baroness  to  have  beneath 
these  western  skies  an  incomparable  resonance. 

Mr.  Wentworth,  though,  as  I  say,  he  went 
punctiliously  to  call  upon  her,  was  not  able  to  feel 
that  he  was  getting  used  to  his  niece.  It  taxed 
his  imagination  to  believe  that  she  was  really  his 
half-sister's  child.  His  sister  was  a  figure  of  his 
early 'years  ;  she  had  been  only  twenty  when  she 
went  abroad,  never  to  return,  making  in  foreign 
parts  a  willful  and  undesirable  marriage.  His 
aunt,  Mrs.  Whiteside,  who  had  taken  her  to  Eu- 
rope for  the  benefit  of  the  tour,  gave,  on  her  re- 
turn, so  lamentable  an  account  of  Mr.  Adolphus 
Young,  to  whom  the  headstrong  girl  had  united 
her  destiny,  that  it  operated  as  a  chill  upon  family 
feeling  —  especially  in  the  case  of  the  half-brothers. 
Catherine  had  done  nothing  subsequently  to  pro- 
pitiate her  family  ;  she  had  not  even  written  to 
them  in  a  way  that  indicated  a  lucid  appreciation 
of  their  suspended  sympathy;  so  that  it  had  be- 
come a  tradition  in  Boston  circles  that  the  highest 


THE  EUROPEANS.  93 

charity,  as  regards  this  young  lady,  was  to  think 
it  well  to  forget  her,  and  to  abstain  from  con- 
jecture as  to  the  extent  to  which  her  aberrations 
were  reproduced  in  her  descendants.  Over  these 
young  people  —  a  vague  report  of  their  existence 
had  come  to  his  ears — Mr.  Wentworth  had  not, 
in  the  course  of  years,  allowed  his  imagination  to 
hover.  It  had  plenty  of  occupation  nearer  home, 
and  though  he  had  many  cares  upon  his  conscience 
the  idea  that  he  had  been  an  unnatural  uncle  was, 
very  properly,  never  among  the  number.  Now 
that  his  nephew  and  niece  had  come  before  him, 
he  perceived  that  they  were  the  fruit  of  influences 
and  circumstances  very  different  from  those  under 
which  his  own  familiar  progeny  had  reached  a 
vaguely-qualified  maturity.  He  felt  no  provoca- 
tion to  say  that  these  influences  had  been  exerted 
for  evil;  but  he  was  sometimes  afraid  that  he 
should  not  be  able  to  like  his  distinguished,  deli- 
cate, lady-like  niece.  He  was  paralyzed  and  be- 
wildered by  her  foreignness.  She  spoke,  somehow, 
a  different  language.  There  was  something  strange 
in  her  words.  He  had  a  feeling  that  another  man, 
in  his  place,  would  accommodate  himself  to  her 
tone  ;  would  ask  her  questions  and  joke  with  her, 
reply  to  those  pleasantries  of  her  own  which  some- 
times seemed  startling  as  addressed  to  an  uncle. 
But  Mr.  Wentworth  could  not  do  these  things. 


94  THE  EUROPEANS. 

He  could  not  even  bring  himself  to  attempt  to 
measure  her  position  in  the  world.  She  was 
the  wife  of  a  foreign  nobleman  who  desired  to  re- 
pudiate her.  This  had  a  singular  sound,  but  the 
old  man  felt  himself  destitute  of  the  materials  for 
a  judgment.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he  ought  to 
find  them  in  his  own  experience,  as  a  man  of  the 
world  and  an  almost  public  character  ;  but  they 
were  not  there,  and  he  was  ashamed  to  confess 
to  himself  —  much  more  to  reveal  to  Eugenia  by 
interrogations  possibly  too  innocent  —  the  unfur- 
nished condition  of  this  repository. 

It  appeared  to  him  that  he  could  get  much 
nearer,  as  he  would  have  said,  to  his  nephew ; 
though  he  was  not  sure  that  Felix  was  altogether 
safe.  He  was  so  bright  and  handsome  and  talka- 
tive that  it  was  impossible  not  to  think  well  of 
him  ;  and  yet  it  seemed  as  if  there  were  some- 
thing almost  impudent,  almost  vicious  —  or  as  if 
there  ought  to  be  —  in  a  young  man  being  at  once 
so  joyous  and  so  positive.  It  was  to  be  observed 
that  while  Felix  was  not  at  all  a  serious  young 
man  there  was  somehow  more  of  him  —  he  had 
more  weight  and  volume  and  resonance  —  than 
a  number  of  young  men  who  were  distinctly  seri- 
ous. While  Mr.  Wentworth  meditated  upon  this 
anomaly  his  nephew  was  admiring  him  unrestrict- 
edly. He  thought  him  a  most  delicate,  generous, 


THE  EUROPEANS.  95 

high-toned  old  gentleman,  with  a  very  handsome 
head,  of  the  ascetic  type,  which  he  promised  him- 
self the  profit  of  sketching.  Felix  was  far  from 
having  made  a  secret  of  the  fact  that  he  wielded 
the  paint-brush,  and  it  was  not  his  own  fault  if  it 
failed  to  be  generally  understood  that  he  was  pre- 
pared to  execute  the  most  striking  likenesses  on 
the  most  reasonable  terms.  "  He  is  an  artist  —  my 
cousin  is  an  artist,"  said  Gertrude  ;  and  she  offered 
this  information  to  every  one  who  would  receive 
it.  She  offered  it  to  herself,  as  it  were,  by  way 
of  admonition  and  reminder  ;  she  repeated  to  her- 
self at  odd  moments,  in  lonely  places,  that  Felix 
was  invested  with  this  sacred  character.  Gertrude 
had  never  seen  an  artist  before ;  she  had  only  reajd 
about  such  people.  They  seemed  to  her  a  roman- 
tic and  mysterious  class,  whose  life  was  made  up 
of  those  agreeable  accidents  that  never  happened 
to  other  persons.  And  it  merely  quickened  her 
meditations  on  this  point  that  Felix  should  declare, 
as  he  repeatedly  did,  that  he  was  really  not  an 
artist.  "  I  have  never  gone  into  the  thing  se- 
riously," he  said.  "  I  have  never  studied  ;  I  have 
had  no  training.  I  do  a  little  of  everything,  and 
nothing  well.  I  am  only  an  amateur." 

It  pleased  Gertrude  even  more  to  think  that  he 
was  an  amateur  than  to  think  that  he  was  an 
artist;  the  former  word,  to  her  fancy,  had  an  even 


96  THE  EUROPEANS. 

subtler  connotation.  She  knew,  however,  that  it 
was  a  word  to  use  more  soberly.  Mr.  Wentworth 
used  it  freely;  for  though  he  had  not  been  exactly 
familiar  with  it,  he  found  it  convenient  as  a  help 
toward  classifying  Felix,  who,  as  a  young  man 
extremely  clever  and  active  and  apparently  re- 
spectable and  yet  not  engaged  in  any  recognized 
business,  was  an  importunate  anomaly.  Of  course 
the  Baroness  and  her  brother  —  she  was  always 
spoken  of  first  —  were  a  welcome  topic  of  conver- 
sation between  Mr.  Wentworth  and  his  daughters 
and  their  occasional  visitors. 

"  And  the  young  man,  your  nephew,  what  is 
his  profession  ?  "  asked  an  old  gentleman  —  Mr. 
Broderip,  of  Salem  —  who  had  been  Mr.  Went- 
worth's  classmate  at  Harvard  College  in  the  year 
1809,  and  who  came  into  his  office  in  Devonshire 
Street.  (Mr.  Wentworth,  in  his  later  years,  used 
to  go  but  three  times  a  week  to  his  office,  where 
he  had  a  large  amount  of  highly  confidential  trust- 
business  to  transact.) 

"  Well,  he  's  an  amateur,"  said  Felix's  uncle, 
with  folded  hands,  and  with  a  certain  satisfaction 
in  being  able  to  say  it.  And  Mr.  Broderip  had 
gone  back  to  Salem  with  a  feeling  that  this  was 
probably  a  "  European  "  expression  for  a  broker 
or  a  grain  exporter. 

"  I  should  like  to  do  your  head,  sir,"  said  Felix 


THE  EUROPEANS.  97 

to  his  uncle  one  evening,  before  them  all  —  Mr. 
Brand  and  Robert  Acton  being  also  present.  "  I 
think  I  should  make  a  very  fine  thing  of  it.  It 's 
an  interesting  head  ;  it 's  very  mediaeval." 

Mr.  Wentworth  looked  grave ;  he  felt  awk- 
wardly, as  if  all  the  company  had  come  in  and 
found  him  standing  before  the  looking-glass. 
"  The  Lord  made  it,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  think  it 
is  for  man  to  make  it  over  again." 

"  Certainly  the  Lord  made  it,"  replied  Felix, 
laughing,  "  and  he  made  it  very  well.  But  life 
has  been  touching  up  the  work.  It  is  a  very  in- 
teresting type  of  head.  It 's  delightfully  wasted 
and  emaciated.  The  complexion  is  wonderfully 
bleached."  And  Felix  looked  round  at  the  cir- 
cle, as  if  to  call  their  attention  to  these  interesting 
points.  Mr.  Wentworth  grew  visibly  paler.  "  I 
should  like  to  do  you  as  an  old  prelate,  an  old  car- 
dinal, or  the  prior  of  an  order." 

"  A  prelate,  a  cardinal  ?  "  murmured  Mr.  Went- 
worth. "  Do  you  refer  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
priesthood  ?  " 

"  I  mean  an  old  ecclesiastic  who  should  have 
led  a  very  pure,  abstinent  life.  Now  I  take  it  that 
has  been  the  case  with  you,  sir;  one  sees  it  in 
your  face,"  Felix  proceeded.  "  You  have  been 
very  —  a  —  very  moderate.  Don't  you  think  one 
always  sees  that  in  a  man's  face  ?  " 
7 


98  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  You  see  more  in  a  man's  face  than  I  should 
think  of  looking  for,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth  coldly. 

The  Baroness  rattled  her  fan,  and  gave  her 
brilliant  laugh.  "  It  is  a  risk  to  look  so  close  !  " 
she  exclaimed.  "  My  uncle  has  some  peccadilloes 
on  his  conscience."  Mr.  Wentworth  looked  at 
her,  painfully  at  a  loss  ;  and  in  so  far  as  the  signs 
of  a  pure  and  abstinent  life  were  visible  in  his 
face  they  were  then  probably  peculiarly  manifest. 
"  You  are  a  beau  vieillard,  dear  uncle,"  said  Mad- 
ame Minister,  smiling  with  her  foreign  eyes. 

"  I  think  you  are  paying  me  a  compliment," 
said  the  old  man. 

"  Surely,  I  am  not  the  first  woman  that  ever 
did  so !  "  cried  the  Baroness. 

u  I  think  you  are,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth  grave- 
ly. And  turning  to  Felix  he  added,  in  the  same 
tone,  "  Please  don't  take  my  likeness.  My  chil- 
dren have  my  daguerreotype.  That  is  quite  satis- 
factory." 

"  I  won't  promise,"  said  Felix,  "  not  to  work 
your  head  into  something  !  " 

Mr.  Wentworth  looked  at  him  and  then  at  all 
the  others ;  then  he  got  up  and  slowly  walked 
away. 

"  Felix,"  said  Gertrude,  in  the  silence  that  fol- 
lowed, "  I  wish  you  would  paint  my  portrait." 

Charlotte  wondered  whether  Gertrude  was  right 


THE  EUROPEANS.  99 

in  wishing  this ;  and  she  looked  at  Mr.  Brand  as 
the  most  legitimate  way  of  ascertaining.  What- 
ever Gertrude  did  or  said,  Charlotte  always  looked 
at  Mr.  Brand.  It  was  a  standing  pretext  for  look- 
ing at  Mr.  Brand  —  always,  as  Charlotte  thought, 
in  the  interest  of  Gertrude's  welfare.  It  is  true 
that  she  felt  a  tremulous  interest  in  Gertrude  be- 
ing right ;  for  Charlotte,  in  her  small,  still  way, 
was  an  heroic  sister. 

14  We  should  be  glad  to  have  your  portrait, 
Miss  Gertrude,"  said  Mr.  Brand. 

u  I  should  be  delighted  to  paint  so  charming  a 
model,"  Felix  declared. 

"  Do  you  think  you  are  so  lovely,  my  dear  ?  " 
asked  Lizzie  Acton,  with  her  little  inoffensive  pert- 
ness,  biting  off  a  knot  in  her  knitting. 

"  It  is  not  because  I  think  I  am  beautiful," 
said  Gertrude,  looking  all  round.  "  I  don't  think 
I  am.  beautiful,  at  all."  She  spoke  with  a  sort 
of  conscious  deliberateness ;  and  it  seemed  very 
strange  to  Charlotte  to  hear  her  discussing  this 
question  so  publicly.  "It  is  because  I  think  it 
would  be  amusing  to  sit  and  be  painted.  I  have 
always  thought  that." 

"  I  am  sorry  you  have  not  had  better  things  to 
think  about,  my  daughter,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  You  are  very  beautiful,  cousin  Gertrude,"  Fe- 
lix declared. 


100  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  That 's  a  compliment,"  said  Gertrude.  "  I 
put  all  the  compliments  I  receive  into  a  little 
money-jug  that  has  a  slit  in  the  side.  I  shake 
them  up  and  down,  and  they  rattle.  There  are 
not  many  yet  —  only  two  or  three." 

"  No,  it 's  not  a  compliment,"  Felix  rejoined. 
"  See  ;  I  am  careful  not  to  give  it  the  form  of  a 
compliment.  I  did  n't  think  you  were  beautiful 
at  first.  But  you  have  come  to  seem  so  little  by 
little." 

"Take  care,  now,  your  jug  doesn't  burst!" 
exclaimed  Lizzie. 

"  I  think  sitting  for  one's  portrait  is  only  one 
of  the  various  forms  of  idleness,"  said  Mr.  Went- 
worth.  "  Their  name  is  legion." 

"  My  dear  sir,"  cried  Felix,  "  you  can't  be  said 
to  be  idle  when  you  are  making  a  man  work  so !  " 

"  One  might  be  painted  while  one  is  asleep," 
suggested  Mr.  Brand,  as  a  contribution  to  the  dis- 
cussion. 

"  Ah,  do  paint  me  while  I  am  asleep,"  said 
Gertrude  to  Felix,  smiling.  And  she  closed  her 
eyes  a  little.  It  had  by  this  time  become  a  mat- 
ter of  almost  exciting  anxiety  to  Charlotte  what 
Gertrude  would  say  or  would  do  next. 

She  began  to  sit  for  her  portrait  on  the  follow- 
ing day  —  in  the  open  air,  on  the  north  side  of 
the  piazza.  "  I  wish  you  would  tell  me  what  you 


THE  EUROPEANS.  101 

think  of  us  —  how  we  seem  to  you,"  she  said  to 
Felix,  as  he  sat  before  his  easel. 

"  You  seem  to  me  the  best  people  in  the  world," 
said  Felix. 

"  You  say  that,"  Gertrude  resumed,  "  because 
it  saves  you  the  trouble  of  saying  anything  else." 

The  young  man  glanced  at  her  over  the  top  of 
his  canvas.  "What  else  should  I  say  ?  It  would 
certainly  be  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  say  any- 
thing different." 

"  Well,"  said  Gertrude,  "  you  have  seen  people 
before  that  you  have  liked,  have  you  not?  " 

"  Indeed  I  have,  thank  Heaven  !  " 

"And  they  have  been  very  different  from  us," 
Gertrude  went  on. 

"  That  only  proves,"  said  Felix,  "  that  there 
are  a  thousand  different  ways  of  being  good  com- 
pany." 

"  Do  you  think  us  good  company  ?  "  asked  Ger- 
trude. 

"  Company  for  a  king  ! " 

Gertrude  was  silent  a  moment ;  and  then, 
"  There  must  be  a  thousand  different  ways  of 
being  dreary,"  she  said  ;  "  and  sometimes  I  think 
we  make  use  of  them  all." 

Felix  stood  up  quickly,  holding  up  his  hand. 
"  If  you  could  only  keep  that  look  on  your  face 
for  half  an  hour  —  while  I  catch  it ! "  he  said, 
u  It  is  uncommonly  handsome." 


102  THE  EUROPEANS. 

44  To  look  handsome  for  half  an  hour  —  that  is 
a  great  deal  to  ask  of  me,"  she  answered. 

"  It  would  be  the  portrait  of  a  young  woman 
who  has  taken  some  vow,  some  pledge,  that  she 
repents  of,"  said  Felix,  "and  who  is  thinking  it 
over  at  leisure." 

"  I  have  taken  no  vow,  no  pledge,"  said  Ger- 
trude, very  gravely  ;  "  I  have  nothing  to  repent  of." 

44  My  dear  cousin,  that  was  only  a  figure  of 
speech.  I  am  very  sure  that  no  one  in  your  ex- 
cellent family  has  anything  to  repent  of." 

44  And  yet  we  are  always  repenting  !  "  Gertrude 
exclaimed.  44  That  is  what  I  mean  by  our  being 
dreary.  You  know  it  perfectly  well ;  you  only 
pretend  that  you  don't." 

Felix  gave  a  quick  laugh.  44  The  half  hour  is 
going  on,  and  yet  you  are  handsomer  than  ever. 
One  must  be  careful  what  one  says,  you  see." 

"  To  me,"  said  Gertrude,  44  you  can  say  any- 
thing." 

Felix  looked  at  her,  as  an  artist  might,  and 
painted  for  some  time  in  silence. 

44  Yes,  you  seem  to  me  different  from  your  father 
and  sister  —  from  most  of  the  people  you  have 
lived  with,"  he  observed. 

44  To  say  that  one's  self,"  Gertrude  went  on,  "is 
like  saying  —  by  implication,  at  least  —  that  one 
is  better.  I  am  not  better  ;  I  am  much  worse. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  103 

But  they  say  themselves  that  I  am  different.  It 
makes  them  unhappy." 

"Since  you  accuse  me  of  concealing  my  real 
impressions,  I  may  admit  that  I  think  the  tend- 
ency —  among  you  generally  —  is  to  be  made  un- 
happy too  easily." 

"  I  wish  you  would  tell  that  to  my  father,"  said 
Gertrude. 

"  It  might  make  him  more  unhappy  !  "  Felix 
exclaimed,  laughing. 

"  It*  certainly  would.  I  don't  believe  you  have 
seen  people  like  that." 

"  Ah,  my  dear  cousin,  how  do  you  know  what  I 
have  seen?"  Felix  demanded.  "  How  can  I  tell 
you  ?  " 

"  You  might  tell  me  a  great  many  things,  if  you 
only  would.  You  have  seen  people  like  yourself 
—  people  who  are  bright  and  gay  and  fond  of 
amusement.  We  are  not  fond  of  amusement." 

"  Yes,"  said  Felix,  "  I  confess  that  rather  strikes 
me.  You  don't  seem  to  me  to  get  all  the  pleasure 
out  of  life  that  you  might.  You  don't  seem  to  me 

to  enjoy Do  you  mind  my  saying  this  ?  " 

he  asked,  pausing. 

"  Please  go  on,"  said  the  girl,  earnestly. 

"  You  seem  to  me  very  well  placed  for  enjoying. 
You  have  money  and  liberty  and  what  is  called  in 
Europe  a  4  position.'  But  you  take  a  painful  view 
of  life,  as  one  may  say." 


104  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  One  ought  to  think  it  bright  and  charming 
and  delightful,  eh  ?  "  asked  Gertrude. 

"I  should  say  so  —  if  one  can.  It  is  true  it  all 
depends  upon  that,"  Felix  added. 

"  You  know  there  is  a  great  deal  of  misery  in 
the  world,"  said  his  model. 

"  I  have  seen  a  little  of  it,"  the  young  man  re- 
joined. "  But  it  was  all  over  there  —  beyond  the 
sea.  I  don't  see  any  here.  This  is  a  paradise." 

Gertrude  said  nothing ;  she  sat  looking  at  the 
dahlias  and  the  currant-bushes  in  the  garden, 
while  Felix  went  on  with  his  work.  "  To  '  en- 
joy,' "  she  began  at  last,  "  to  take  life  —  not  pain- 
fully, must  one  do  something  wrong?  " 

Felix  gave  his  long,  light  laugh  again.  "  Seri- 
ously, I  think  not.  And  for  this  reason,  among 
others :  you  strike  me  as  very  capable  of  enjoy- 
ing, if  the  chance  were  given  you,  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  as  incapable  of  wrong-doing." 

"  I  am  sure,  "  said  Gertrude,  "  that  you  are  very 
wrong  in  telling  a  person  that  she  is  incapable  of 
that.  We  are  never  nearer  to  evil  than  when  we 
believe  that." 

"  You  are  handsomer  than  ever,"  observed  Fe- 
lix, irrelevantly. 

Gertrude  had  got  used  to  hearing  him  say  this. 
There  was  not  so  much  excitement  in  it  as  at 
first.  "  What  ought  one  to  do  ?  "  she  continued. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  105 

44  To  give  parties,  to  go  to  the  theatre,  to  read 
novels,  to  keep  late  hours  ?  " 

"  I  don't  think  it 's  what  one  does  or  one 
doesn't  do  that  promotes  enjoyment,"  her  com- 
panion answered.  "  It  is  the  general  way  of  look- 
ing at  life." 

44  They  look  at  it  as  a  discipline  —  that 's  what 
they  do  here.  I  have  often  been  told  that." 

44  Well,  that  rs  very  good.  But  there  is  another 
way,"  added  Felix,  smiling :  44  to  look  at  it  as  an 
opportunity." 

44  An  opportunity  — yes,"  said  Gertrude.  44  One 
would  get  more  pleasure  that  way." 

44 1  don't  attempt  to  say  anything  better  for  it 
than  that  it  has  been  my  own  way  —  and  that  is 
not  saying  much  !  "  Felix  had  laid  down  his 
palette  and  brushes  ;  he  was  leaning  back,  with 
his  arms  folded,  to  judge  the  effect  of  his  work. 
44  And  you  know,"  he  said,  44 1  am  a  very  petty 
personage." 

44  You  have  a  great  deal  of  talent,"  said  Ger- 
trude. 

44  No  —  no,"  the  young  man  rejoined,  in  a  tone 
of  cheerful  impartiality,  44I  have  not  a  great  deal 
of  talent.  It  is  nothing  at  all  remarkable.  I  as- 
sure you  I  should  know  if  it  were.  I  shall  always 
be  obscure.  The  world  will  never  hear  of  me." 
Gertrude  looked  at  him  with  a  strange  feeling. 


106  THE  EUROPEANS. 

She  was  thinking  of  the  great  world  which  he 
knew  and  which  she  did  not,  and  how  full  of  brill- 
iant talents  it  must  be,  since  it  could  afford  to 
make  light  of  his  abilities.  "  You  need  n't  in  gen- 
eral attach  much  importance  to  anything  I  tell 
you,"  he  pursued ;  "  but  you  may  believe  me  when 
I  say  this,  —  that  I  am  little  better  than  a  good- 
natured  feather-head." 

"  A  feather-head?  "  she  repeated. 

"  I  am  a  species  of  Bohemian." 

"  A  Bohemian  ?  "  Gertrude  had  never  heard 
this  term  before,  save  as  a  geographical  denomina- 
tion ;  and  she  quite  failed  to  understand  the  figur- 
ative meaning  which  her  companion  appeared  to 
attach  to  it.  But  it  gave  her  pleasure. 

Felix  had  pushed  back  his  chair  and  risen  to  his 
feet ;  he  slowly  came  toward  her,  smiling.  "  I  am 
a  sort  of  adventurer,"  he  said,  looking  down  at  her. 

She  got  up,  meeting  his  smile.  "An  advent- 
urer?" she  repeated.  "  I  should  like  to  hear  your 
adventures." 

For  an  instant  she  believed  that  he  was  going 
to  take  her  hand ;  but  he  dropped  his  own  hands 
suddenly  into  the  pockets  of  his  painting-jacket. 
"  There  is  no  reason  why  you  should  n't,"  he  said. 
"  I  have  been  an  adventurer,  but  my  adventures 
have  been  very  innocent.  They  have  all  been 
happy  ones ;  I  don't  think  there  are  any  I  should 


THE  EUROPEANS.  107 

n't  tell.  They  were  very  pleasant  and  very  pretty  ; 
I  should  like  to  go  over  them  in  memory.  Sit 
down  again,  and  I  will  begin,"  he  added  in  a  mo- 
ment, with  his  naturally  persuasive  smile. 

Gertrude  sat  down  again  on  that  day,  and  she 
sat  down  on  several  other  days.  Felix,  while  he 
plied  his  brush,  told  her  a  great  many  stories,  and 
she  listened  with  charmed  avidity.  Her  eyes  rested 
upon  his  lips ;  she  was  very  serious ;  sometimes, 
from  her  air  of  wondering  gravity,  he  thought  she 
was  displeased.  But  Felix  never  believed  for  more 
than  a  single  moment  in  any  displeasure  of  his 
own  producing.  This  would  have  been  fatuity  if 
the  optimism  it  expressed  had  not  been  much  more 
a  hope  than  a  prejudice.  It  is  beside  the  matter 
to  say  that  he  had  a  good  conscience  ;  for  the  best 
conscience  is  a  sort  of  self-reproach,  and  this  young 
man's  brilliantly  healthy  nature  spent  itself  in  ob- 
jective good  intentions  which  were  ignorant  of  any 
test  save  exactness  in  hitting  their  mark.  He  told 
Gertrude  how  he  had  walked  over  France  and 
Italy  with  a  painter's  knapsack  on  his  back,  pay- 
ing his  way  often  by  knocking  off  a  flattering  por- 
trait of  his  host  or  hostess.  He  told  her  how  he 
had  played  the  violin  in  a  little  band  of  musicians 
—  not  of  high  celebrity  —  who  traveled  through 
foreign  lands  giving  provincial  concerts.  He  told 
her  also  how  he  had  been  a  momentary  ornament 


108  THE  EUROPEANS. 

of  a  troupe  of  strolling  actors,  engaged  in  the  ar- 
duous task  of  interpreting  Shakespeare  to  French 
and  German,  Polish  and  Hungarian  audiences. 

While  this  periodical  recital  was  going  on,  Ger- 
trude lived  in  a  fantastic  world ;  she  seemed  to 
herself  to  be  reading  a  romance  that  came  out  in 
daily  numbers.  She  had  known  nothing  so  de- 
lightful since  the  perusal  of  "  Nicholas  Nickleby." 
One  afternoon  she  went  to  see  her  cousin,  Mrs. 
Acton,  Robert's  mother,  who  was  a  great  invalid, 
never  leaving  the  house.  She  came  back  alone,  on 
foot,  across  the  fields  —  this  being  a  short  way 
which  they  often  used.  Felix  had  gone  to  Boston 
with  her  father,  who  desired  to  take  the  young 
man  to  call  upon  some  of  his  friends,  old  gentle- 
men who  remembered  his  mother  —  remembered 
her,  but  said  nothing  about  her  —  and  several  of 
whom,  with  the  gentle  ladies  their  wives,  had 
driven  out  from  town  to  pay  their  respects  at  the 
little  house  among  the  apple-trees,  in  vehicles 
which  reminded  the  Baroness,  who  received  her 
visitors  with  discriminating  civility,  of  the  large, 
light,  rattling  barouche  in  which  she  herself  had 
made  her  journey  to  this  neighborhood.  The  af- 
ternoon was  waning ;  in  the  western  sky  the  great 
picture  of  a  New  England  sunset,  painted  in  crim- 
son and  silver,  was  suspended  from  the  zenith ; 
and  the  stony  pastures,  as  Gertrude  traversed 


THE  EUROPEANS.  109 

them,  thinking  intently  to  herself,  were  covered 
with  a  light,  clear  glow.  At  the  open  gate  of 
one  of  the  fields  she  saw  from  the  distance  a  man's 
figure;  he  stood  there  as  if  he  were  waiting  for 
her,  and  as  she  came  nearer  she  recognized  Mr. 
Brand.  She  had  a  feeling  as  of  not  having  seen 
him  for  some  time ;  she  could  not  have  said  for 
how  long,  for  it  yet  seemed  to  her  that  he  had 
been  very  lately  at  the  house. 

"  May  I  walk  back  with  you  ?  "  he  asked.  And 
when  she  had  said  that  he  might  if  he  wanted,  he 
observed  that  he  had  seen  her  and  recognized  her 
half  a  mile  away. 

"You  must  have  very  good  eyes,"  said  Ger- 
trude. 

"  Yes,  I  have  very  good  eyes,  Miss  Gertrude," 
said  Mr.  Brand.  She  perceived  that  he  meant 
something ;  but  for  a  long  time  past  Mr.  Brand 
had  constantly  meant  something,  and  she  had  al- 
most got  used  to  it.  She  felt,  however,  that  what 
he  meant  had  now  a  renewed  power  to  disturb  her, 
to  perplex  and  agitate  her.  He  walked  beside  her 
in  silence  for  a  moment,  and  then  he  added,  "  I 
have  had  no  trouble  in  seeing  that  you  are  begin- 
ning to  avoid  me.  But  perhaps,"  he  went  on,  "one 
need  n't  have  had  very  good  eyes  to  see  that." 

"  I  have  not  avoided  you,"  said  Gertrude,  with- 
out looking  at  him. 


110  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"I  think  you  have  been  unconscious  that  you 
were  avoiding  me,"  Mr.  Brand  replied.  "  You 
have  not  even  known  that  I  was  there." 

"  Well,  you  are  here  now,  Mr.  Brand  !  "  said 
Gertrude,  with  a  little  laugh.  "  I  know  that  very 
well." 

He  made  no  rejoinder.  He  simply  walked  be- 
side her  slowly,  as  they  were  obliged  to  walk  over 
the  soft  grass.  Presently  they  came  to  another 
gate,  which  was  closed.  Mr.  Brand  laid  his  hand 
upon  it,  but  he  made  no  movement  to  open  it ;  he 
stood  and  looked  at  his  companion.  "You  are 
very  much  interested  —  very  much  absorbed,"  he 
said. 

Gertrude  glanced  at  him ;  she  saw  that  he  was 
pale  and  that  he  looked  excited.  She  had  never 
seen  Mr.  Brand  excited  before,  and  she  felt  that 
the  spectacle,  if  fully  carried  out,  would  be  im- 
pressive, almost  painful.  "Absorbed  in  what?" 
she  asked.  Then  she  looked  away  at  the  illumi- 
nated sky.  She  felt  guilty  and  uncomfortable, 
and  yet  she  was  vexed  with  herself  for  feeling  so. 
But  Mr.  Brand,  as  he  stood  there  looking  at  her 
with  his  small,  kind,  persistent  eyes,  represented 
an  immense  body  of  half -obliterated  obligations, 
that  were  rising  again  into  a  certain  distinctness. 

"  You  have  new  interests,  new  occupations,"  he 
went  on.  "  I  don't  know  that  I  can  say  that  you 


THE  EUROPEANS.  Ill 

have  new  duties.  We  have  always  old  ones,  Ger- 
trude," he  added. 

"  Please  open  the  gate,  Mr.  Brand,"  she  said ; 
and  she  felt  as  if,  in  saying  so,  she  were  cowardly 
and  petulant.  But  he  opened  the  gate,  and  al- 
lowed her  to  pass  ;  then  he  closed  it  behind  him- 
self. Before  she  had  time  to  turn  away  he  put 
out  his  hand  and  held  her  an  instant  by  the 
wrist. 

"  I  want  to  say  something  to  you,"  he  said. 

"  I  know  what  you  want  to  say,"  she  answered. 
And  she  was  on  the  point  of  adding,  "And  I 
know  just  how  you  will  say  it;  "  but  these  words 
she  kept  back. 

"  I  love  you,  Gertrude,"  he  said.  "  I  love  you 
very  much  ;  I  love  you  more  than  ever." 

He  said  the  words  just  as  she  had  known  he 
would  ;  she  had  heard  them  before.  They  had 
no  charm  for  her  ;  she  had  said  to  herself  before 
that  it  was  very  strange.  It  was  supposed  to  be 
delightful  for  a  woman  to  listen  to  such  words  ; 
but  these  seemed  to  her  flat  and  mechanical.  "  I 
wish  you  would  forget  that,"  she  declared. 

"  How  can  I  —  why  should  I  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  have  made  you  no  promise  —  given  you  no 
pledge,"  she  said,  looking  at  him,  with  her  voice 
trembling  a  little. 

"  You  have  let  me  feel  that  I  have  an  influence 
over  you.  You  have  opened  your  mind  to  me." 


112  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  I  never  opened  my  mind  to  you,  Mr.  Brand !  " 
Gertrude  cried,  with  some  vehemence. 

"  Then  you  were  not  so  frank  as  I  thought  — 
as  we  all  thought." 

"  I  don't  see  what  any  one  else  had  to  do  with 
it !  "  cried  the  girl. 

"I  mean  your  father  and  your  sister.  You 
know  it  makes  them  happy  to  think  you  will  lis- 
ten to  me." 

She  gave  a  little  laugh.  "  It  does  n't  make 
them  happy,"  she  said.  "Nothing  makes  them 
happy.  No  one  is  happy  here." 

"I  think  your  cousin  is  very  happy  —  Mr. 
Young,"  rejoined  Mr.  Brand,  in  a  soft,  almost 
timid  tone. 

"  So  much  the  better  for  him  ! "  And  Gertrude 
gave  her  little  laugh  again. 

The  young  man  looked  at  her  a  moment.  "  You 
are  very  much  changed,"  he  said. 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  Gertrude  declared. 

"  I  am  not.  I  have  known  you  a  long  time, 
and  I  have  loved  you  as  you  were." 

"  I  am  much  obliged  to  you,"  said  Gertrude. 
" 1  must  be  going  home." 

He  on  his  side,  gave  a  little  laugh. 

"  You  certainly  do  avoid  me  —  you  see  !  " 

"Avoid  me,  then,"  said  the  girl. 

He  looked  at  her  again ;  and  then,  very  gently, 


THE  EUROPEANS.  113 

"  No  I  will  not  avoid  you,"  he  replied  ;  "  but  I 
will  leave  you,  for  the  present,  to  yourself.  I 
think  you  will  remember  —  after  a  while  —  some 
of  the  things  you  have  forgotten.  I  think  you 
will  come  back  to  me ;  I  have  great  faith  in  that." 
This  time  his  voice  was  very  touching ;  there  was 
a  strong,  reproachful  force  in  what  he  said,  and 
Gertrude  could  answer  nothing.  He  turned  away 
and  stood  there,  leaning  his  elbows  on  the  gate 
and  looking  at  the  beautiful  sunset.  Gertrude 
left  him  and  took  her  way  home  again ;  but  when 
she  reached  the  middle  of  the  next  field  she  sud- 
denly burst  into  tears.  Her  tears  seemed  to  her 
to  have  been  a  long  time  gathering,  and  for  some 
moments  it  was  a  kind  of  glee  to  shed  them.  But 
they  presently  passed  away.  There  was  some- 
thing a  little  hard  about  Gertrude;  and  she  never 
wept  again. 


VI. 

GOING  of  an  afternoon  to  call  upon  his  niece, 
Mr.  Went  worth  more  than  once  found  Robert 
Acton  sitting  in  her  little  drawing-room.  This 
was  in  no  degree,  to  Mr.  Wentworth,  a  perturb- 
ing fact,  for  he  had  no  sense  of  competing  with  his 
young  kinsman  for  Eugenia's  good  graces.  Mad- 
ame Minister's  uncle  had  the  highest  opinion  of 
Robert  Acton,  who,  indeed,  in  the  family  at  large, 
was  the  object  of  a  great  deal  of  undemonstrative 
appreciation.  They  were  all  proud  of  him,  in  so 
far  as  the  charge  of  being  proud  may  be  brought 
against  people  who  were,  habitually,  distinctly 
guiltless  of  the  misdemeanor  known  as  "  taking 
credit."  They  never  boasted  of  Robert  Acton, 
nor  indulged  in  vainglorious  reference  to  him; 
they  never  quoted  the  clever  things  he  had  said, 
nor  mentioned  the  generous  things  he  had  done. 
But  a  sort  of  frigidly-tender  faith  in  his  unlimited 
goodness  was  a  part  of  their  personal  sense  of 
right;  and  there  can,  perhaps,  be  no  better  proof 
of  the  high  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  than  the 
fact  that  no  explicit  judgment  was  ever  passed 


THE  EUROPEANS.  115 

upon  his  actions.  He  was  no  more  praised  than  he 
was  blamed ;  but  he  was  tacitly  felt  to  be  an  orna- 
ment to  his  circle.  He  was  the  man  of  the  world 
of  the  family.  He  had  been  to  China  and  brought 
home  a  collection  of  curiosities ;  he  had  made  a 
fortune  —  or  rather  he  had  quintupled  a  fortune 
already  considerable  ;  he  was  distinguished  by 
that  combination  of  celibacy,  "  property,"  and 
good  humor  which  appeals  to  even  the  most  sub- 
dued imaginations  ;  and  it  was  taken  for  granted 
that  he  would  presently  place  these  advantages  at 
the  disposal  of  some  well-regulated  young  woman 
of  his  own  "  set."  Mr.  Wentworth,  was  not  a 
man  to  admit  to  himself  that  —  his  paternal  du- 
ties apart  —  he  liked  any  individual  much  better 
than  all  other  individuals ;  but  he  thought  Robert 
Acton  extremely  judicious ;  and  this  was  perhaps 
as  near  an  approach  as  he  was  capable  of  to  the 
eagerness  of  preference,  which  his  temperament 
repudiated  as  it  would  have  disengaged  itself  from 
something  slightly  unchaste.  Acton  was,  in  fact, 
very  judicious  —  and  something  more  beside  ;  and 
indeed  it  must  be  claimed  for  Mr.  Wentworth  that 
in  the  more  illicit  parts  of  his  preference  there 
hovered  the  vague  adumbration  of  a  belief  that  his 
cousin's  final  merit  was  a  certain  enviable  capacity 
for  whistling,  rather  gallantly,  at  the  sanctions  of 
mere  judgment  —  for  showing  a  larger  courage,  a 


116  THE  EUROPEANS. 

finer  quality  of  pluck,  than  common  occasion  de- 
manded. Mr.  Wentworth  would  never  have  risked 
the  intimation  that  Acton  was  made,  in  the  small- 
est degree,  of  the  stuff  of  a  hero ;  but  this  is  small 
blame  to  him,  for  Robert  would  certainly  never 
have  risked  it  himself.  Acton  certainly  exercised 
great  discretion  in  all  things  —  beginning  with  his 
estimate  of  himself.  He  knew  that  he  was  by  no 
means  so  much  of  a  man  of  the  world  as  he  was 
supposed  to  be  in  local  circles  ;  but  it  must  be 
added  that  he  knew  also  that  his  natural  shrewd- 
ness had  a  reach  of  which  he  had  never  quite  given 
local  circles  the  measure.  He  was  addicted  to  tak- 
ing the  humorous  view  of  things,  and  he  had  dis- 
covered that,  even  in  the  narrowest  circles  such  a 
disposition  may  find  frequent  opportunities.  Such 
opportunities  had  formed  for  some  time  —  that  is, 
since  his  return  from  China,  a  year  and  a  half  be- 
fore—  the  most  active  element  in  this  gentleman's 
life,  which  had  just  now  a  rather  indolent  air. 
He  was  perfectly  willing  to  get  married.  He  was 
very  fond  of  books,  and  he  had  a  handsome  li- 
brary ;  that  is,  his  books  were  much  more  numer- 
ous than  Mr.  Wentworth's.  He  was  also  very  fond 
of  pictures ;  but  it  must  be  confessed,  in  the  fierce 
light  of  contemporary  criticism,  that  his  walls  were 
adorned  with  several  rather  abortive  masterpieces. 
He  had  got  his  learning  —  and  there  was  more  of 


THE  EUROPEANS.  117 

it  than  commonly  appeared —  at  Harvard  College  ; 
and  he  took  a  pleasure  in  old  associations,  which 
made  it  a  part  of  his  daily  contentment  to  live  so 
near  this  institution  that  he  often  passed  it  in  driv- 
ing to  Boston.  He  was  extremely  interested  in 
the  Baroness  Miinster. 

She  was  very  frank  with  him  ;  or  at  least  she 
intended  to  be.  "I  am  sure  you  find  it  very 
strange  that  I  should  have  settled  down  in  this 
out-of-the-way  part  of  the  world !  "  she  said  to  him 
three  or  four  weeks  after  she  had  installed  herself. 
"  I  am  certain  you  are  wondering  about  my  mo- 
tives. They  are  very  pure."  The  Baroness  by 
this  time  was  an  old  inhabitant;  the  best  society 
in  Boston  had  called  upon  her,  and  Clifford  Went- 
worth  had  taken  her  several  times  to  drive  in  his 
buggy. 

Robert  Acton  was  seated  near  her,  playing  with 
a  fan  ;  there  were  always  several  fans  lying  about 
her  drawing-room,  with  long  ribbons  of  different 
colors  attached  to  them,  and  Acton  was  always 
playing  with  one,  "No,  I  don't  find  it  at  all 
strange,"  he  said  slowly,  smiling.  "  That  a  clever 
woman  should  turn  up  in  Boston,  or  its  suburbs 
—  that  does  not  require  so  much  explanation. 
Boston  is  a  very  nice  place.'* 

u  If  you  wish  to  make  me  contradict  you,"  said 
the  Baroness,  "  vous  vous  y  prenez  mal.  In  cer- 

f 


118  THE  EUROPEANS. 

tain  moods  there  is  nothing  I  am  not  capable  of 
agreeing  to.  Boston  is  a  paradise,  and  we  are  in 
the  suburbs  of  Paradise." 

"  Just  now  I  am  not  at  all  in  the  suburbs ;  I 
am  in  the  place  itself,"  rejoined  Acton,  who  was 
lounging  a  little  in  his  chair.  He  was,  however, 
not  always  lounging;  and  when  he  was  he  was 
not  quite  so  relaxed  as  he  pretended.  To  a  cer- 
tain extent,  he  sought  refuge  from  shyness  in  this 
appearance  of  relaxation ;  and  like  many  persons 
in  the  same  circumstances  he  somewhat  exagger- 
ated the  appearance.  Beyond  this,  the  air  of  being 
much  at  his  ease  was  a  cover  for  vigilant  observa- 
tion. He  was  more  than  interested  in  this  clever 
woman,  who,  whatever  he  might  say,  was  clever 
not  at  all  after  the  Boston  fashion ;  she  plunged 
him  into  a  kind  of  excitement,  held  him  in  vague 
suspense.  He  was  obliged  to  admit  to  himself 
that  he  had  never  yet  seen  a  woman  just  like  this 
—  not  even  in  China.  He  was  ashamed,  for  in- 
scrutable reasons,  of  the  vivacity  of  his  emotion, 
and  he  carried  it  off,  superficially,  by  taking,  still 
superficially,  the  humorous  view  of  Madame  Miin- 
ster.  It  was  not  at  all  true  that  he  thought  it 
very  natural  of  her  to  have  made  this  pious  pilgrim- 
age. It  might  have  been  said  of  him  in  advance 
that  he  was  too  good  a  Bostonian  to  regard  in  the 
light  of  an  eccentricity  the  desire  of  even  the  re- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  119 

motest  alien  to  visit  the  New  England  metropolis. 
This  was  an  impulse  for  which,  surely,  no  apology 
was  needed ;  and  Madame  Miinster  was  the  for- 
tunate possessor  of  several  New  England  cousins. 
In  fact,  however,  Madame  Miinster  struck  him  as 
out  of  keeping  with  her  little  circle  ;  she  was  at 
the  best  a  very  agreeable,  a  gracefully  mystifying 
anomaly.  He  knew  very  well  that  it  would  not 
do  to  address  these  reflections  too  crudely  to  Mr. 
Wentworth ;  he  would  never  have  remarked  to 
the  old  gentleman  that  he  wondered  what  the 
Baroness  was  up  to.  And  indeed  he  had  no  great 
desire  to  share  his  vague  mistrust  with  any  one. 
There  was  a  personal  pleasure  in  it ;  the  greatest 
pleasure  he  had  known  at  least  since  he  had  come 
from  China.  He  would  keep  the  Baroness,  for 
better  or  worse,  to  himself ;  he  had  a  feeling  that 
he  deserved  to  enjoy  a  monoply  of  her,  for  he  was 
certainly  the  person  who  had  most  adequately 
gauged  her  capacity  for  social  intercourse.  Before 
long  it  became  apparent  to  him  that  the  Baroness 
was  disposed  to  lay  no  tax  upon  such  a  monopoly. 
One  day  (he  was  sitting  there  again  and  play- 
ing with  a  fan)  she  asked  him  to  apologize,  should 
the  occasion  present  itself,  to  certain  people  in 
Boston  for  her  not  having  returned  their  calls. 
"  There  are  half  a  dozen  places,"  she  said ;  "  a 
formidable  list.  Charlotte  Wentworth  has  writ- 


120  THE  EUROPEANS. 

ten  it  out  for  me,  in  a  terrifically  distinct  hand. 
There  is  no  ambiguity  on  the  subject;  I  know 
perfectly  where  I  must  go.  Mr.  Wentworth  in- 
forms me  that  the  carriage  is  always  at  my  dis- 
posal, and  Charlotte  offers  to  go  with  me,  in  a 
pair  of  tight  gloves  and  a  very  stiff  petticoat. 
And  yet  for  three  days  I  have  been  putting  it  off. 
They  must  think  me  horribly  vicious." 

"  You  ask  me  to  apologize,"  said  Acton,  "  but 
you  don't  tell  me  what  excuse  I  can  offer." 

"  That  is  more,"  the  Baroness  declared,  "  than 
I  am  held  to.  It  would  be  like  my  asking  you  to 
buy  me  a  bouquet  and  giving  you  the  money.  I 
have  no  reason  except  that  —  somehow  —  it 's  too 
violent  an  effort.  It  is  not  inspiring.  Would  n't 
that  serve  as  an  excuse,  in  Boston  ?  I  am  told 
they  are  very  sincere  ;  they  don't  tell  fibs.  And 
then  Felix  ought  to  go  with  me,  and  he  is  never 
in  readiness.  I  don't  see  him.  He  is  always 
roaming  about  the  fields  and  sketching  old  barns, 
or  taking  ten-mile  walks,  or  painting  some  one's 
portrait,  or  rowing  on  the  pond,  or  flirting  with 
Gertrude  Wentworth." 

"  I  should  think  it  would  amuse  you  to  go  and 
see  a  few  people,"  said  Acton.  "  You  are  having 
a  very  quiet  time  of  it  here.  It 's  a  dull  life  for 
you." 

"Ah,   the   quiet,  —  the   quiet!"  the   Baroness 


THE  EUROPEANS.  121 

exclaimed.  "  That 's  what  I  like.  It 's  rest. 
That 's  what  I  came  here  for.  Amusement  ?  I 
have  had  amusement.  And  as  for  seeing  people 
—  I  have  already  seen  a  great  many  in  my  life. 
If  it  did  n't  sound  ungracious  I  should  say  that 
I  wish  very  humbly  your  people  here  would  leave 
me  alone  !  " 

Acton  looked  at  her  a  moment,  and  she  looked 
at  him.  She  was  a  woman  who  took  being  looked 
at  remarkably  well.  "  So  you  have  come  here 
for  rest  ?  "  he  asked. 

"So  I  may  say.  I  came  for  many  of  those 
reasons  that  are  no  reasons  —  don't  you  know  ?  — 
and  yet  that  are  really  the  best :  to  come  away, 
to  change,  to  break  with  everything.  When  once 
one  comes  away  one  must  arrive  somewhere,  and 
I  asked  myself  why  I  should  n't  arrive  here." 

"  You  certainly  had  time  on  the  way  ! "  said 
Acton,  laughing. 

Madame  Miinster  looked  at  him  again ;  and 
then,  smiling :  "  And  I  have  certainly  had  time, 
since  I  got  here,  to  ask  myself  why  I  came.  How- 
ever, I  never  ask  myself  idle  questions.  Here  I 
ain,  and  it  seems  to  me  you  ought  only  to  thank 
me." 

"  When  you  go  away  you  will  see  the  difficul- 
ties I  shall  put  in  your  path." 

"  You  mean  to  put  difficulties  in  my  path  ?  " 
she  asked,  rearranging  the  rosebud  in  her  corsage. 


122  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  The  greatest  of  all  —  that  of  having  been  so 
agreeable"  — 

"  That  I  shall  be  unable  to  depart?  Don't  be 
too  sure.  I  have  left  some  very  agreeable  people 
over  there." 

"  Ah,"  said  Acton,  "  but  it  was  to  come  here, 
where  I  am  I  " 

"  I  did  n't  know  of  your  existence.  Excuse  me 
for  saying  anything  so  rude  ;  but,  honestly  speak- 
ing, I  did  not.  No,"  the  Baroness  pursued,  "  it 
was  precisely  not  to  see  you  —  such  people  as  you 
—  that  I  came." 

"  Such  people  as  me  ?  "  cried  Acton. 

"  I  had  a  sort  of  longing  to  come  into  those  nat- 
ural relations  which  I  knew  I  should  find  here. 
Over  there  I  had  only,  as  I  may  say,  artificial  re- 
lations. Don't  you  see  the  difference  ?  " 

"  The  difference  tells  against  me,"  said  Acton. 
"  I  suppose  I  am  an  artificial  relation." 

"  Conventional,"  declared  the  Baroness  ;  "  very 
conventional." 

"  Well,  there  is  one  way  in  which  the  relation 
of  a  lady  and  a  gentleman  may  always  become 
natural,"  said  Acton. 

"  You  mean  by  their  becoming  lovers  ?  That 
may  be  natural  or  not.  And  at  any  rate,"  re- 
joined Eugenia,  "  nous  n'en  sommes  pas  Id  !  " 

They  were  not,  as  yet ;  but  a  little  later,  when 


THE  EUROPEANS.  123 

she  began  to  go  with  him  to  drive,  it  might  almost 
have  seemed  that  they  were.  He  came  for  her 
several  times,  alone,  in  his  high  "  wagon,"  drawn 
by  a  pair  of  charming  light-limbed  horses.  It 
was  different,  her  having  gone  with  Clifford  Went- 
worth,  who  was  her  cousin,  and  so  much  younger. 
It  was  not  to  be  imagined  that  she  should  have 
a  flirtation  with  Clifford,  who  was  a  mere  shame- 
faced boy,  and  whom  a  large  section  of  Boston 
society  supposed  to  be  "engaged"  to  Lizzie  Acton. 
Not,  indeed,  that  it  was  to  be  conceived  that  the 
Baroness  was  a  possible  party  to  any  flirtation 
whatever  ;  for  she  was  undoubtedly  a  married 
lady.  It  was  generally  known  that  her  matri- 
monial condition  was  of  the  "  morganatic  "  order ; 
but  in  its  natural  aversion  to  suppose  that  this 
meant  anything  less  than  absolute  wedlock,  the 
conscience  of  the  community  took  refuge  in  the 
belief  that  it  implied  something  even  more. 

Acton  wished  her  to  think  highly  of  American 
scenery,  and  he  drove  her  to  great  distances,  pick- 
ing out  the  prettiest  roads  and  the  largest  points 
of  view.  If  we  are  good  when  we  are  contented, 
Eugenia's  virtues  should  now  certainly  have  been 
uppermost ;  for  she  found  a  charm  in  the  rapid 
movement  through  a  wild  country,  and  in  a  com- 
panion who  from  time  to  time  made  the  vehicle 
dip,  with  a  motion  like  a  swallow's  flight,  over 


124  TEE  EUROPEANS. 

roads  of  primitive  construction,  and  who,  as  she 
felt,  would  do  a  great  many  things  that  she  might 
ask  him.  Sometimes,  for  a  couple  of  hours  to- 
gether, there  were  almost  no  houses  ;  there  were 
nothing  but  woods  and  rivers  and  lakes  and  hori- 
zons adorned  with  bright-looking  mountains.  It 
seemed  to  the  Baroness  very  wild,  as  I  have  said, 
and  lovely ;  but  the  impression  added  something 
to  that  sense  of  the  enlargement  of  opportunity 
which  had  been  born  of  her  arrival  in  the  New 
World. 

One  day —  it  was  late  in  the  afternoon  — :  Acton 
pulled  up  his  horses  on  the  crest  of  a  hill  which 
commanded  a  beautiful  prospect.  He  let  them 
stand  a  long  time  to  rest,  while  he  sat  there  and 
talked  with  Madame  Miinster.  The  prospect  was 
beautiful  in  spite  of  there  being  nothing  human 
within  sight.  There  was  a  wilderness  of  woods, 
and  the  gleam  of  a  distant  river,  and  a  glimpse  of 
half  the  hill-tops  in  Massachusetts.  The  road  had 
a  wide,  grassy  margin,  on  the  further  side  of  which 
there  flowed  a  deep,  clear  brook ;  there  were  wild 
flowers  in  the  grass,  and  beside  the  brook  lay  the 
trunk  of  a  fallen  tree.  Acton  waited  a  while  ;  at 
last  a  rustic  wayfarer  came  trudging  along  the 
road.  Acton  asked  him  to  hold  the  horses  —  a 
service  he  consented  to  render,  as  a  friendly  turn 
to  a  fellow-citizen.  Then  he  invited  the  Baroness 


THE  EUROPEANS.  125 

to  descend,  and  the  two  wandered  away,  across 
the  grass,  and  sat  down  on  the  log  beside  the 
brook. 

"  I  imagine  it  does  n't  remind  you  of  Silber- 
stadt,"  said  Acton.  It  was  the  first  time  that  he 
had  mentioned  Silberstadt  to  her,  for  particular 
reasons.  He  knew  she  had  a  husband  there,  and 
this  was  disagreeable  to  him  ;  and,  furthermore, 
it  had  been  repeated  to  him  that  this  husband 
wished  to  put  her  away  —  a  state  of  affairs  to 
which  even  indirect  reference  was  to  be  depre- 
cated. It  was  true,  nevertheless,  that  the  Baron- 
ess herself  had  often  alluded  to  Silberstadt ;  and 
Acton  had  often  wondered  why  her  husband 
wished  to  get  rid  of  her.  It  was  a  curious  posi- 
tion for  a  lady  —  this  being  known  as  a  repudiated 
wife ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  observation  that  the 
Baroness  carried  it  off  with  exceeding  grace  and 
dignity.  She  had  made  it  felt,  from  the  first,  that 
there  were  two  sides  to  the  question,  and  that  her 
own  side,  when  she  should  choose  to  present  it, 
would  be  replete  with  touching  interest. 

"  It  does  not  remind  me  of  the  town,  of  course," 
she  said,  "  of  the  sculptured  gables  and  the  Gothic 
churches,  of  the  wonderful  Schloss,  with  its  moat 
and  its  clustering  towers.  But  it  has  a  little  look 
of  some  other  parts  of  the  principality.  One 
might  fancy  one's  self  among  those  grand  old  Ger- 


126  .  THE  EUROPEANS. 

man  forests,  those  legendary  mountains ;  the  sort 
of  country  one  sees  from  the  windows  at  Shrecken- 
stein." 

"  What  is  Shreckenstein  ?  "  asked  Acton. 

"  It  is  a  great  castle,  — the  summer  residence  of 
the  Reigning  Prince." 

'*  Have  you  ever  lived  there  ?  " 

"  I  have  stayed  there,"  said  the  Baroness.  Ac- 
ton was  silent ;  he  looked  a  While  at  the  un castled 
landscape  before  him.  "  It  is  the  first  time  you 
have  ever  asked  me  about  Silberstadt,"  she  said. 
"  I  should  think  you  would  want  to  know  about 
my  marriage  ;  it  must  seem  to  you  very  strange." 

Acton  looked  at  her  a  moment.  "  Now  you 
would  n't  like  me  to  say  that !  " 

"  You  Americans  have  such  odd  ways !  "  the 
Baroness  declared.  "  You  never  ask  anything 
outright ;  there  seem  to  be  so  many  things  you 
can't  talk  about." 

u  We  Americans  are  very  polite,"  said  Acton, 
whose  national  consciousness  had  been  complicated 
by  a  residence  in  foreign  lands,  and  who  yet  dis- 
liked to  hear  Americans  abused.  "We  don't  like 
to  tread  upon  people's  toes,"  he  said.  "But  I 
should  like  very  much  to  hear  about  your  mar- 
riage. Now  tell  me  how  it  came  about." 

"  The  Prince  fell  in  love  with  me,"  replied  the 
Baroness  simply.  "  He  pressed  his  suit  very  hard. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  127 

At  first  he  did  n't  wish  me  to  marry  him  ;  on  the 
contrary.  But  on  that  basis  I  refused  to  listen  to 
him.  So  he  offered  me  marriage  —  in  so  far  as 
be  might.  I  was  young,  and  I  confess  I  was 
rather  flattered.  But  if  it  were  to  be  done  again 
now,  I  certainly  should  not  accept  him." 

"  How  long  ago  was  this  ?  "  asked  Acton. 

"  Oh  —  several  years,"  said  Eugenia.  "  You 
should  never  ask  a  woman  for  dates." 

"  Why,  I  should  think  that  when  a  woman  was 
relating  history "  ....  Acton  answered.  "And 
now  he  wants  to  break  it  off  ?  " 

"  They  want  him  to  make  a  political  marriage. 
It  is  his  brother's  idea.  His  brother  is  very 
clever." 

"  They  must  be  a  precious  pair  !  "  cried  Robert 
Acton. 

The  Baroness  gave  a  little  philosophic  shrug. 
"  Que  voulez-vous?  They  are  princes.  They 
think  they  are  treating  me  very  well.  Silberstadt 
is  a  perfectly  despotic  little  state,  and  the  Reign- 
ing Prince  may  annul  the  marriage  by  a  stroke  of 
his  pen.  But  he  has  promised  me,  nevertheless, 
not  to  do  so  without  my  formal  consent." 

"  And  this  you  have  refused  ?  " 

"  Hitherto.  It  is  an  indignity,  and  I  have 
wished  at  least  to  make  it  difficult  for  them. 
But  I  have  a  little  document  in  my  writing-desk 


128  THE  EUROPEANS. 

which  I  have  only  to  sign  and  send  back  to  the 
Prince." 

"  Then  it  will  be  all  over  ?  " 

The  Baroness  lifted  her  hand,  and  dropped  it 
again.  "  Of  course  I  shall  keep  my  title;  at  least, 
I  shall  be  at  liberty  to  keep  it  if  I  choose.  And  I 
suppose  I  shall  keep  it.  One  must  have  a  name. 
And  I  shall  keep  my  pension.  It  is  very  small  — 
it  is  wretchedly  small ;  but  it  is  what  I  live  on." 

44  And  you  have  only  to  sign  that  paper  ? " 
Acton  asked. 

The  Baroness  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "  Do 
you  urge  it  ?  " 

He  got  up  slowly,  and  stood  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets.  "  What  do  you  gain  by  not  doing 
it?" 

44  I  am  supposed  to  gain  this  advantage  —  that 
if  I  delay,  or  temporize,  the  Prince  may  come 
back  to  me,  may  make  a  stand  against  his  brother. 
He  is  very  fond  of  me,  and  his  brother  has  pushed 
him  only  little  by  little." 

44  If  he  were  to  come  back  to  you,"  said  Acton, 
44  would  you  —  would  you  take  him  back  ?  " 

The  Baroness  met  his  eyes ;  she  colored  just  a 
little.  Then  she  rose.  44 1  should  have  the  sat- 
isfaction of  saying,  4  Now  it  is  my  turn.  I  break 
with  your  serene  highness  ! ' : 

They    began    to    walk    toward    the    carriage. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  129 

"  Well,"  said  Robert  Acton,  "  it 's  a  curious 
story  !  How  did  you  make  his  acquaintance  ?  " 

"  I  was  staying  with  an  old  lady  —  an  old 
Countess  —  in  Dresden.  She  had  been  a  friend 
of  my  father's.  My  father  was  dead  ;  I  was  very 
much  alone.  My  brother  was  wandering  about 
the  world  in  a  theatrical  troupe." 

"  Your  brother  ought  to  have  stayed  with  you," 
Acton  observed,  "  and  kept  you  from  putting  your 
trust  in  princes." 

The  Baroness  was  silent  a  moment,  and  then, 
"  He  did  what  he  could,"  she  said.  "  He  sent  me 
money.  The  old  Countess  encouraged  the  Prince ; 
she  was  even  pressing.  It  seems  to  me,"  Mad- 
ame Minister  added,  gently,  "  that  —  under  the 
circumstances  —  I  behaved  very  well." 

Acton  glanced  at  her,  and  made  the  observa- 
tion —  he  had  made  it  before  —  that  a  woman 
looks  the  prettier  for  having  unfolded  her  wrongs 
or  her  sufferings.  "  Well,"  he  reflected,  audibly, 
"  I  should  like  to  see  you  send  his  serene  highness 
—  somewhere  !  " 

Madame  Miinster  stooped  and  plucked  a  daisy 
from  the  grass.  "And  not  sign  my  renuncia- 
tion ?  " 

"Well,  I  don't  know  — I  don't  know,"  said 
Acton. 

9 


130  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  In  one  case  I  should  have  my  revenge ;  in 
another  case  I  should  have  my  liberty." 

Acton  gave  a  little  laugh  as  he  helped  her  into 
the  carriage.  "  At  any  rate,"  he  said,  "  take  good 
care  of  that  paper." 

A  couple  of  days  afterward  he  asked  her  to 
come  and  see  his  house.  The  visit  had  already 
been  proposed,  but  it  had  been  put  off  in  conse- 
quence of  his  mother's  illness.  She  was  a  constant 
invalid,  and  she  had  passed  these  recent  years, 
very  patiently,  in  a  great  flowered  arm-chair  at 
her  bedroom  window.  Lately,  for  some  days,  she 
had  been  unable  to  see  any  one ;  but  now  she 
was  better,  and  she  sent  the  Baroness  a  very  civil 
message.  Acton  had  wished  their  visitor  to  come 
to  dinner ;  but  Madame  Miinster  preferred  to  be- 
gin with  a  simple  call.  She  had  reflected  that  if 
she  should  go  to  dinner  Mr.  Wentworth  and  his 
daughters  would  also  be  asked,  and  it  had  seemed 
to  her  that  the  peculiar  character  of  the  occasion 
would  be  best  preserved  in  a  tete-d-tete  with  her 
host.  Why  the  occasion  should  have  a  peculiar 
character  she  explained  to  no  one.  As  far  as  any 
one  could  see,  it  was  simply  very  pleasant.  Acton 
came  for  her  and  drove  her  to  his  door,  an  oper- 
ation which  was  rapidly  performed.  His  house 
the  Baroness  mentally  pronounced  a  very  good 
one ;  more  articulately,  she  declared  that  it  was 


THE  EUROPEANS.  131 

enchanting.  It  was  large  and  square  and  painted 
brown;  it  stood  in  a  well-kept  shrubbery,  and 
was  approached,  from  the  gate,  by  a  short  drive. 
It  was,  moreover,  a  much  more  modern  dwelling 
than  Mr.  Wentworth's,  and  was  more  redundantly 
upholstered  and  expensively  ornamented.  The 
Baroness  perceived  that  her  entertainer  had  ana- 
lyzed material  comfort  to  a  sufficiently  fine  point. 
And  then  he  possessed  the  most  delightful  chi- 
noiseries  —  trophies  of  his  sojourn  in  the  Celestial 
Empire :  pagodas  of  ebony  and  cabinets  of  ivo- 
ry ;  sculptured  monsters,  grinning  and  leering  on 
chimney-pieces,  in  front  of  beautifully  figured 
hand-screens ;  porcelain  dinner-sets,  gleaming  be- 
hind the  glass  doors  of  mahogany  buffets ;  large 
screens,  in  corners,  covered  with  tense  silk  and 
embroidered  with  mandarins  and  dragons.  These 
things  were  scattered  all  over  the  house,  and  they 
gave  Eugenia  a  pretext  for  a  complete  domiciliary 
visit.  She  liked  it,  she  enjoyed  it ;  she  thought 
it  a  very  nice  place.  It  had  a  mixture  of  the 
homely  and  the  liberal,  and  though  it  was  almost 
a  museum,  the  large,  little-used  rooms  were  as 
fresh  and  clean  as  a  well-kept  dairy.  Lizzie  Ac- 
ton told  her  that  she  dusted  all  the  pagodas  and 
other  curiosities  every  day  with  her  own  hands ; 
and  the  Baroness  answered  that  she  was  evidently 
a  household  fairy.  Lizzie  had  not  at  all  the  look 


132  THE  EUROPEANS. 

of  a  young  lady  who  dusted  things  ;  she  wore  such 
pretty  dresses  and  had  such  delicate  fingers  that 
it  was  difficult  to  imagine  her  immersed  in  sordid 
cares.  She  came  to  meet  Madame  Minister  on 
her  arrival,  but  she  said  nothing,  or  almost  noth- 
ing, and  the  Baroness  again  reflected — she  had 
had  occasion  to  do  so  before  —  that  American 
girls  had  no  manners.  She  disliked  this  little 
American  girl,  and  she  was  quite  prepared  to 
learn  that  she  had  failed  to  commend  herself  to 
Miss  Acton.  Lizzie  struck  her  as  positive  and 
explicit  almost  to  pertness;  and  the  idea  of  her 
combining  the  apparent  incongruities  of  a  taste 
for  housework  and  the  wearing  of  fresh,  Parisian- 
looking  dresses  suggested  the  possession  of  a  dan- 
gerous energy.  It  was  a  source  of  irritation  to 
the  Baroness  that  in  this  country  it  should  seem 
to  matter  whether  a  little  girl  were  a  trifle  less 
or  a  trifle  more  of  a  nonentity ;  for  Eugenia  had 
hitherto  been  conscious  of  no  moral  pressure  as 
regards  the  appreciation  of  diminutive  virgins. 
It  was  perhaps  an  indication  of  Lizzie's  pertness 
that  she  very  soon  retired  and  left  the  Baroness 
on  her  brother's  hands.  Acton  talked  a  great 
deal  about  his  chinoiseries ;  he  knew  a  good  deal 
about  porcelain  and  bric-a-brac.  The  Baroness, 
in  her  progress  through  the  house,  made,  as  it 
were,  a  great  many  stations.  She  sat  down  every- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  133 

where,  confessed  to  being  a  little  tired,  and  asked 
about  the  various  objects  with  a  curious  mixture 
of  alertness  and  inattention.  If  there  had  been 
any  one  to  say  it  to  she  would  have  declared  that 
she  was  positively  in  love  with  her  host ;  but  she 
could  hardly  make  this  declaration  —  even  in  the 
strictest  confidence  —  to  Acton  himself.  It  gave 
her,  nevertheless,  a  pleasure  that  had  some  of  the 
charm  of  unwontedness  to  feel,  with  that  admira- 
ble keenness  with  which  she  was  capable  of  feeling 
things,  that  he  had  a  disposition  without  any 
edges ;  that  even  his  humorous  irony  always  ex- 
panded toward  the  point.  One's  impression  of 
his  honesty  was  almost  like  carrying  a  bunch  of 
flowers ;  the  perfume  was  most  agreeable,  but 
they  were  occasionally  an  inconvenience.  One 
could  trust  him,  at  any  rate,  round  all  the  corners 
of  the  world  ;  and,  withal,  he  was  not  absolutely 
simple,  which  would  have  been  excess  ;  he  was 
only  relatively  simple,  which  was  quite  enough 
for  the  Baroness. 

Lizzie  reappeared  to  say  that  her  mother  would 
now  be  happy  to  receive  Madame  Minister ;  and 
the  Baroness  followed  her  to  Mrs.  Acton's  apart- 
ment. Eugenia  reflected,  as  she  went,  that  it  was 
not  the  affectation  of  impertinence  that  made  her 
dislike  this  young  lady,  for  on  that  ground  she 
could  easily  have  beaten  her.  It  was  not  an  as- 


134  THE  EUROPEANS. 

piration  on  the  girl's  part  to  rivalry,  but  a  kind 
of  laughing,  childishly-mocking  indifference  to  the 
results  of  comparison.  Mrs.  Acton  was  an  emaci- 
ated, sweet-faced  woman  of  five  and  fifty,  sitting 
with  pillows  behind  her,  and  looking  out  on  a 
clump  of  hemlocks.  She  was  very  modest,  very 
timid,  and  very  ill ;  she  made  Eugenia  feel  grate- 
ful that  she  herself  was  not  like  that  —  neither 
so  ill,  nor,  possibly,  so  modest.  On  a  chair,  be- 
side her,  lay  a  volume  of  Emerson's  Essays.  It 
was  a  great  occasion  for  poor  Mrs.  Acton,  in  her 
helpless  condition,  to  be  confronted  with  a  clever 
foreign  lady,  who  had  more  manner  than  any 
lady  —  any  dozen  ladies  —  that  she  had  ever  seen. 

"  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  about  you,"  she  said, 
softly,  to  the  Baroness. 

"  From  your  son,  eh  ?  "  Eugenia  asked.  "  He 
has  talked  to  me  immensely  of  you.  Oh,  he  talks 
of  you  as  you  would  like,"  the  Baroness  de- 
clared ;  "as  such  a  son  must  talk  of  such  a 
mother !  " 

Mrs.  Acton  sat  gazing ;  this  was  part  of  Mad- 
ame Minister's  "  manner."  But  Robert  Acton 
was  gazing  too,  in  vivid  consciousness  that  he  had 
barely  mentioned  his  mother  to  their  brilliant 
guest.  He  never  talked  of  this  still  maternal 
presence,  —  a  presence  refined  to  such  delicacy 
that  it  had  almost  resolved  itself,  with  him, 


THE  EUROPEANS.  135 

simply  into  the  subjective  emotion  of  gratitude. 
And  Acton  rarely  talked  of  his  emotions.  The 
Baroness  turned  her  smile  toward  him,  and  she 
instantly  felt  that  she  had  been  observed  to  be 
fibbing.  She  had  struck  a  false  note.  But  who 
were  these  people  to  whom  such  fibbing  was  not 
pleasing  ?  If  they  were  annoyed,  the  Baroness 
was  equally  so ;  and  after  the  exchange  of  a  few 
civil  inquiries  and  low-voiced  responses  she  took 
leave  of  Mrs.  Acton.  She  begged  Robert  not  to 
come  home  with  her ;  she  would  get  into  the  car- 
riage alone ;  she  preferred  that.  This  was  impe- 
rious, and  she  thought  he  looked  disappointed. 
While  she  stood  before  the  door  with  him  —  the 
carriage  was  turning  in  the  gravel-walk  —  this 
thought  restored  her  serenity. 

When  she  had  given  him  her  hand  in  farewell 
she  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "  I  have  almost  de- 
cided to  dispatch  that  paper,"  she  said. 

He  knew  that  she  alluded  to  the  document  that 
she  had  called  her  renunciation ;  and  he  assisted 
her  into  the  carriage  without  saying  anything. 
But  just  before  the  vehicle  began  to  move  he  said, 
"  Well,  when  you  have  in  fact  dispatched  it,  I 
hope  you  will  let  me  know  !  " 


VII. 

FELIX  YOUNG  finished  Gertrude's  portrait, 
and  he  afterwards  transferred  to  canvas  the  feat- 
ures of  many  members  of  that  circle  of  which  it 
may  be  said  that  he  had  become  for  the  time  the 
pivot  and  the  centre.  I  am  afraid  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  he  was  a  decidedly  flattering  painter, 
and  that  he  imparted  to  his  models  a  romantic 
grace  which  seemed  easily  and  cheaply  acquired 
by  the  payment  of  a  hundred  dollars  to  a  young 
man  who  made  "  sitting  "  so  entertaining.  For 
Felix  was  paid  for  his  pictures,  making,  as  he  did, 
no  secret  of  the  fact  that  in  guiding  his  steps  to 
the  Western  world  affectionate  curiosity  had  gone 
hand  in  hand  with  a  desire  to  better  his  condition. 
He  took  his  uncle's  portrait  quite  as  if  Mr.  Went- 
worth  had  never  averted  himself  from  the  experi- 
ment ;  and  as  he  compassed  his  end  only  by  the 
exercise  of  gentle  violence,  it  is  but  fair  to  add 
that  he  allowed  the  old  man  to  give  him  nothing 
but  his  time.  He  passed  his  arm  into  Mr.  Went- 
worth's  one  summer  morning  —  very  few  arms  in- 
deed had  ever  passed  into  Mr.  Wentworth's  — 


THE  EUROPEANS.  137 

and  led  him  across  the  garden  and  along  the  road 
into  the  studio  which  he  had  extemporized  in  the 
little  house  among  the  apple-trees.  The  grave 
gentleman  felt  himself  more  and  more  fascinated 
by  his  clever  nephew,  whose  fresh,  demonstrative 
youth  seemed  a  compendium  of  experiences  so 
strangely  numerous.  It  appeared  to  him  that 
Felix  must  know  a  great  deal ;  he  would  like  to 
learn  what  he  thought  about  some  of  those  things 
as  regards  which  his  own  conversation  had  always 
been  formal,  but  his  knowledge  vague.  Felix  had 
a  confident,  gayly  trenchant  way  of  judging  hu- 
man actions  which  Mr.  Wentworth  grew  little  by 
little  to  envy ;  it  seemed  like  criticism  made  easy. 
Forming  an  opinion  —  say  on  a  person's  conduct 
—  was,  with  Mr.  Wentworth,  a  good  deal  like 
fumbling  in  a  lock  with  a  key  chosen  at  hazard. 
He  seemed  to  himself  to  go  about  the  world  with 
a  big  bunch  of  these  ineffectual  instruments  at 
his  girdle.  His  nephew,  on  the  other  hand,  with 
a  single  turn  of  the  wrist,  opened  any  door  as 
adroitly  as  a  horse-thief.  He  felt  obliged  to  keep 
up  the  convention  that  an  uncle  is  always  wiser 
than  a  nephew,  even  if  he  could  keep  it  up  no 
otherwise  than  by  listening  in  serious  silence  to 
Felix's  quick,  light,  constant  discourse.  But  there 
came  a  day  when  he  lapsed  from  consistency  and 
almost  asked  his  nephew's  advice. 


138  THE   EUROPEANS. 

"  Have  you  ever  entertained  the  idea  of  settling 
in  the  United  States?"  he  asked  one  morning, 
while  Felix  brilliantly  plied  his  brush. 

"My  dear  uncle,"  said  Felix  "excuse  me  if 
your  question  makes  me  smile  a  little.  To  begin 
with,  I  have  never  entertained  an  idea.  Ideas 
often  entertain  me  ;  but  I  am  afraid  I  have  never 
seriously  made  a  plan.  I  know  what  you  are 
going  to  say ;  or  rather,  I  know  what  you  think, 
for  I  don't  think  you  will  say  it  —  that  this  is 
very  frivolous  and  loose-minded  on  my  part.  So 
it  is ;  but  I  am  made  like  that ;  I  take  things  as 
they  come,  and  somehow  there  is  always  some  new 
thing  to  follow  the  last.  In  the  second  place,  I 
should  never  propose  to  settle.  I  can't  settle,  my 
dear  uncle ;  I  'm  not  a  settler.  I  know  that  is 
what  strangers  are  supposed  to  do  here  ;  they  al- 
ways settle.  But  I  haven't — to  answer  your 
question  —  entertained  that  idea." 

"  You  intend  to  return  to  Europe  and  resume 
your  irregular  manner  of  life?"  Mr.  Wentworth 
inquired. 

"  I  can't  say  I  intend.  But  it 's  very  likely  I 
shall  go  back  to  Europe.  After  all,  I  am  a  Eu- 
ropean. I  feel  that,  you  know.  It  will  depend  a 
good  deal  upon  my  sister.  She  's  even  more  of  a 
European  than  I ;  here,  you  know,  she  's  a  picture 
out  of  her  setting.  And  as  for  '  resuming,'  dear 


THE  EUROPEANS.  139 

uncle,  I  really  have  never  given  up  my  irregular 
manner  of  life.  What,  for  me,  could  be  more  ir- 
regular than  this  ?  " 

"Than  what?"  asked  Mr.  Wentworth,  with 
his  pale  gravity. 

"  Well,  than  everything !  Living  in  the  midst 
of  you,  this  way ;  this  charming,  quiet,  serious 
family  life  ;  fraternizing  with  Charlotte  and  Ger- 
trude ;  calling  upon  twenty  young  ladies  and  go- 
ing out  to  walk  with  them  ;  sitting  with  you  in  the 
evening  on  the  piazza  and  listening  to  the  crickets, 
and  going  to  bed  at  ten  o'clock." 

"  Your  description  is  very  animated,  "  said  Mr. 
Wentworth  ;  "  but  I  see  nothing  improper  in  what 
you  describe." 

"  Neither  do  I,  dear  uncle.  It  is  extremely 
delightful ;  I  should  n't  like  it  if  it  were  improper. 
I  assure  you  I  don't  like  improper  things  ;  though 
I  dare  say  you  think  I  do,"  Felix  went  on,  paint- 
ing away. 

"  I  have  never  accused  you  of  that." 

"  Pray  don't,"  said  Felix,  "  because,  you  see,  at 
bottom  I  am  a  terrible  Philistine." 

"  A  Philistine  ?  "  repeated  Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  I  mean,  as  one  may  say,  a  plain,  God-fearing 
man."  Mr.  Wentworth  looked  at  him  reservedly, 
like  a  mystified  sage,  and  Felix  continued,  "I  trust 
I  shall  enjoy  a  venerable  and  venerated  old  age. 


140  THE  EUROPEANS. 

I  mean  to  live  long.  I  can  hardly  call  that  a  plan, 
perhaps ;  but  it 's  a  keen  desire  — a  rosy  vision.  I 
shall  be  a  lively,  perhaps  even  a  frivolous  old 
man!" 

"  It  is  natural,"  said  his  uncle,  sententiously, 
"  that  one  should  desire  to  prolong  an  agreeable 
life.  We  have  perhaps  a  selfish  indisposition  to 
bring  our  pleasure  to  a  close.  But  I  presume," 
he  added,  "  that  you  expect  to  marry." 

"  That  too,  dear  uncle,  is  a  hope,  a  desire,  a 
vision,"  said  Felix.  It  occurred  to  him  for  an  in- 
stant that  this  was  possibly  a  preface  to  the  offer 
of  the  hand  of  one  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  admirable 
daughters.  But  in  the  name  of  decent  modesty 
and  a  proper  sense  of  the  hard  realities  of  this 
world,  Felix  banished  the  thought.  His  uncle 
was  the  incarnation  of  benevolence,  certainly ;  but 
from  that  to  accepting  —  much  more  postulating 
—  the  idea  of  a  union  between  a  young  lady  with 
a  dowry  presumptively  brilliant  and  a  penniless 
artist  with  no  prospect,  of  fame,  there  was  a  very 
long  way.  Felix  had  lately  become  conscious  of  a 
luxurious  preference  for  the  society  —  if  possible 
unshared  with  others  —  of  Gertrude  Wentworth  ; 
but  he  had  relegated  this  young  lady,  for  the 
moment,  to  the  coldly  brilliant  category  of  unat- 
tainable possessions.  She  was  not  the  first  woman 
for  whom  he  had  entertained  an  unpractical  ad- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  141 

miration.  He  had  been  in  love  with  duchesses 
and  countesses,  and  he  had  made,  once  or  twice, 
a  perilously  near  approach  to  cynicism  in  declar- 
ing that  the  disinterestedness  of  women  had  been 
overrated.  On  the  whole,  he  had  tempered  audac- 
ity with  modesty;  and  it  is  but  fair  to  him  now 
to  say  explicitly  that  he  would  have  been  incapa- 
ble of  taking  advantage  of  his  present  large  al- 
lowance of  familiarity  to  make  love  to  the  younger 
of  his  handsome  cousins.  Felix  had  grown  up 
among  traditions  in  the  light  of  which  such  a  pro- 
ceeding looked  like  a  grievous  breach  of  hospital- 
ity. I  have  said  that  he  was  always  happy,  and 
it  may  be  counted  among  the  present  sources  of 
his  happiness  that  he  had  as  regards  this  matter 
of  his  relations  with  Gertrude  a  deliciously  good 
conscience.  His  own  deportment  seemed  to  him 
suffused  with  the  beauty  of  virtue  —  a  form  of 
beauty  that  he  admired  with  the  same  vivacity 
with  which  he  admired  all  other  forms. 

"  I  think  that  if  you  marry,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth 
presently,  "  it  will  conduce  to  your  happiness." 

"  Sicurissimo  !  "  Felix  exclaimed  ;  and  then,  ar- 
resting his  brush,  he  looked  at  his  uncle  with  a 
smile.  "  There  is  something  I  feel  tempted  to 
say  to  you.  May  I  risk  it  ?  " 

Mr.  Wentworth  drew  himself  up  a  little.  "  I 
am  very  safe  ;  I  don't  repeat  things."  But  he 
hoped  Felix  would  not  risk  too  much. 


142  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Felix  was  laughing  at  his  answer. 

"  It 's  odd  to  hear  you  telling  me  how  to  be 
happy.  I  don't  think  you  know  yourself,  dear 
uncle.  Now,  does  that  sound  brutal  ?  " 

The  old  man  was  silent  a  moment,  and  then, 
with  a  dry  dignity  that  suddenly  touched  his 
nephew :  "  We  may  sometimes  point  out  a  road 
we  are  unable  to  follow." 

"  Ah,  don't  tell  me  you  have  had  any  sorrows," 
Felix  rejoined.  "  I  did  n't  suppose  it,  and  I  did  n't 
mean  to  allude  to  them.  I  simply  meant  that  you 
all  don't  amuse  yourselves." 

"  Amuse  ourselves  ?     We  are  not  children." 

"  Precisely  not !  You  have  reached  the  proper 
age.  I  was  saying  that  the  other  day  to  Ger- 
trude," Felix  added.  "I  hope  it  was  not  indis- 
creet." 

"  If  it  was,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth,  with  a  keener 
irony  than  Felix  would  have  thought  him  capable 
of,  "  it  was  but  your  way  of  amusing  yourself.  I 
am  afraid  you  have  never  had  a  trouble." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  have!"  Felix  declared,  with  some 
spirit ;  "  before  I  kflew  better.  But  you  don't 
catch  me  at  it  again." 

Mr.  Wentworth  maintained  for  a  while  a  silence 
more  expressive  than  a  deep-drawn  sigh.  "  You 
have  no  children,"  he  said  at  last. 

"  Don't  tell  me,"  Felix  exclaimed,  "  that  your 


THE  EUROPEANS.  143 

charming  young  people  are  a  source  of  grief  to 
you ! " 

"I  don't  speak  of  Charlotte."  And  then,  af- 
ter a  pause,  Mr.  Wentworth  continued,  "  I  don't 
speak  of  Gertrude.  But  I  feel  considerable  anx- 
iety about  Clifford.  I  will  tell  you  another  time." 

The  next  time  he  gave  Felix  a  sitting  his 
nephew  reminded  him  that  he  had  taken  him  into 
his  confidence.  "  How  is  Clifford  to-day  ?  "  Felix 
asked.  "  He  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  young 
man  of  remarkable  discretion.  Indeed,  he  is  only 
too  discreet ;  he  seems  on  his  guard  against  me  — 
as  if  he  thought  me  rather  light  company.  The 
other  day  he  told  his  sister  —  Gertrude  repeated 
it  to  me  —  that  I  was  always  laughing  at  him.  If 
I  laugh  it  is  simply  from  the  impulse  to  try  and 
inspire  him  with  confidence.  That  is  the  only  way 
I  have." 

"  Clifford's  situation  is  no  laughing  matter," 
said  Mr.  Wentworth.  "It  is  very  peculiar,  as  I 
suppose  you  have  guessed." 

"Ah,  you  mean  his  love  affair  with  his  cousin  ?  " 

Mr.  Wentworth  stared,  blushing  a  little.  "I 
mean  his  absence  from  college.  He  has  been  sus- 
pended. We  have  decided  not  to  speak  of  it  un- 
less we  are  asked." 

"  Suspended  ?  "    Felix  repeated. 

"  He  has  been  requested  by  the  Harvard  au- 


144  THE  EUROPEANS. 

thorities  to  absent  himself  for  six  months.  Mean- 
while he  is  studying  with  Mr.  Brand.  We  think 
Mr.  Brand  will  help  him  ;  at  least  we  hope  so." 

"  What  befell  him  at  college  ?  "  Felix  asked. 
"  He  was  too  fond  of  pleasure  ?  Mr.  Brand  cer- 
tainly will  not  teach  him  any  of  those  secrets !  " 

"  He  was  too  fond  of  something  of  which  he 
should  not  haye  been  fond.  I  suppose  it  is  con- 
sidered a  pleasure." 

Felix  gave  his  light  laugh.  "  My  dear  uncle, 
is  there  any  doubt  about  its  being  a  pleasure  ? 
(Test  de  son  dge,  as  they  say  in  France." 

"  I  should  have  said  rather  it  was  a  vice  of  later 
life  —  of  disappointed  old  age." 

Felix  glanced  at  his  uncle,  with  his  lifted  eye- 
brows, and  then,  "  Of  what  are  you  speaking?" 
he  demanded,  smiling. 

"  Of  the  situation  in  which  Clifford  was  found." 

"  Ah,  he  was  found  —  he  was  caught  ?  " 
"  Necessarily,   he  was  caught.      He   could  n't 
walk  ;  he  staggered.'' 

"  Oh,"  said  Felix,  "  he  drinks  !  I  rather  sus- 
pected that,  from  something  I  observed  the  first 
day  I  came  here.  I  quite  agree  with  you  that  it 
is  a  low  taste.  It 's  not  a  vice  for  a  gentleman. 
He  ought  to  give  it  up." 

"  We  hope  for  a  good  deal  from  Mr.  Brand's 
influence,"  Mr.  Wentworth  went  on.  "  He  has 


THE  EUROPEANS.  .      145 

talked   to   him   from    the   first.     And    he    never 
touches  anything  himself." 

"  I  will  talk  to  him  —  I  will  talk  to  him  ! " 
Felix  declared,  gayly. 

"What  will  you  say  to  him?"  asked  his  uncle, 
with  some  apprehension. 

Felix  for  some  moments  answered  nothing.  "  Do 
you  mean  to  marry  him  to  his  cousin  ?  "  he  asked 
at  last. 

"  Marry  him  ?  "  echoed  Mr.  Wentworth.  "  I 
should  n't  think  his  cousin  would  want  to  marry 
him." 

"You  have  no  understanding,  then,  with  Mrs. 
Acton?" 

Mr.  Wentworth  stared,  almost  blankly.  "  I 
have  never  discussed  such  subjects  with  her." 

"  I  should  think  it  might  be  time,"  said  Felix. 
"  Lizzie  Acton  is  admirably  pretty,  and  if  Clifford 
is  dangerous  .  .  .  .  " 

"  They  are  not  engaged,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth. 
"  I  have  no  reason  to  suppose  they  are  engaged." 

"  Par  exemple !  "  cried  Felix.  "  A  clandestine 
engagement?  Trust  me,  Clifford,  as  I  say,  is  a 
charming  boy.  He  is  incapable  of  that.  Lizzie  Ac- 
ton, then,  would  not  be  jealous  of  another  woman." 

"  I  certainly  hope  not,"  said  the  old  man,  with 
a  vague  sense  of  jealousy  being  an  even  lower  vice 
than  a  love  of  liquor. 
10 


146  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  The  best  thing  for  Clifford,  then,"  Felix  pro- 
pounded, "  is  to  become  interested  in  some  clever, 
charming  woman."  And  he  paused  in  his  paint- 
ing, and,  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees,  looked 
with  bright  communicativeness  at  his  uncle.  "  You 
see,  I  believe  greatly  in  the  influence  of  women. 
Living  with  women  helps  to  make  a  man  a  gentle- 
man. It  is  very  true  Clifford  has  his  sisters,  who 
are  so  charming.  But  there  should  be  a  different 
sentiment  in  play  from  the  fraternal,  you  know. 
He  has  Lizzie  Acton ;  but  she,  perhaps,  is  rather 
immature." 

"  I  suspect  Lizzie  has  talked  to  him,  reasoned 
with  him,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  On  the  impropriety  of  getting  tipsy  —  on  the 
beauty  of  temperance  ?  That  is  dreary  work  for 
a  pretty  young  girl.  No,"  Felix  continued  ;  "  Clif- 
ford ought  to  frequent  some  agreeable  woman, 
who,  without  ever  mentioning  such  unsavory  sub- 
jects, would  give  him  a  sense  of  its  being  very  ri- 
diculous to  be  fuddled.  If  he  could  fall  in  love 
with  her  a  little,  so  much  the  better.  The  thing 
would  operate  as  a  cure." 

"Well,  now,  what  lady  should  you  suggest?" 
asked  Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  There  is  a  clever  woman  under  your  hand. 
My  sister." 

"Your  sister  —  under  my  hand?"  Mr.  Went- 
worth repeated. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  147 

44  Say  a  word  to  Clifford.  Tell  him  to  be  bold. 
He  is  well  disposed  already;  he  has  invited  her 
two  or  three  times  to  drive.  But  I  don't  think  he 
comes  to  see  her.  Give  him  a  hint  to  come  —  to 
come  often.  He  will  sit  there  of  an  afternoon, 
and  they  will  talk.  It  will  do  him  good." 

Mr.  Wentworth  meditated.  "  You  think  she 
will  exercise  a  helpful  influence  ?  " 

"  She  will  exercise  a  civilizing  —  I  may  call  it  a 
sobering  —  influence.  A  charming,  clever,  witty 
woman  always  does— especially  if  she  is  a  little 
of  a  coquette.  My  dear  uncle,  the  society  of  such 
women  has  been  half  my  education.  If  Clifford 
is  suspended,  as  you  say,  from  college,  let  Euge- 
nia be  his  preceptress." 

Mr.  Wentworth  continued  thoughtful.  "You 
think  Eugenia  is  a  coquette  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  What  pretty  woman  is  not  ?  "  Felix  demanded 
in  turn.  But  this,  for  Mr.  Wentworth,  could  at 
the  best  have  been  no  answer,  for  he  did  not  think 
his  niece  pretty.  "  With  Clifford,"  the  young 
man  pursued,  "  Eugenia  will  simply  be  enough  of 
a  coquette  to  be  a  little  ironical.  That 's  what  he 
needs.  So  you  recommend  him  to  be  nice  with 
her,  you  know.  The  suggestion  will  come  best 
from  you." 

"Do  I  understand,"  asked  the  old  man,  "that  I 
am  to  suggest  to  my  son  to  make  a  —  a  profession 
of  —  of  affection  to  Madame  Miinster?" 


148  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"Yes,  yes  —  a  profession!"  cried  Felix  sym- 
pathetically. 

"  But,  as  I  understand  it,  Madame  Miinster  is 
a  married  woman." 

"  Ah,"  said  Felix,  smiling,  "  of  course  she  can't 
marry  him.  But  she  will  do  what  she  can." 

Mr.  Went  worth  sat  for  some  time  with  his  eyes 
on  the  floor ;  at  last  he  got  up.  "  I  don't  think," 
he  said,  "  that  I  can  undertake  to  recommend  my 
son  any  such  course."  And  without  meeting  Fe- 
lix's surprised  glance  he  broke  off  his  sitting,  which 
was  not  resumed  for  a  fortnight. 

Felix  was  very  fond  of  the  little  lake  which  oc- 
cupied so  many  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  numerous 
acres,  and  of  a  remarkable  pine  grove  which  lay 
upon  the  further  side  of  it,  planted  upon  a  steep 
embankment  and  haunted  by  the  summer  breeze. 
The  murmur  of  the  air  in  the  far  off  tree-tops 
had  a  strange  distinctness ;  it  was  almost  articu- 
late. One  afternoon  the  young  man  came  out  of 
his  painting-room  and  passed  the  open  door  of 
Eugenia's  little  salon.  Within,  in  the  cool  dim- 
ness, he  saw  his  sister,  dressed  in  white,  buried 
in  her  arm-chair,  and  holding  to  her  face  an 
immense  bouquet.  Opposite  to  her  sat  Clifford 
Wentworth,  twirling  his  hat.  He  had  evidently 
just  presented  the  bouquet  to  the  Baroness,  whose 
fine  eyes,  as  she  glanced  at  him  over  the  big  roses 


THE  EUROPEANS.  149 

and  geraniums,  wore  a  conversational  smile.  Fe- 
lix, standing  on  the  threshold  of  the  cottage,  hes- 
itated for  a  moment  as  to  whether  he  should  re- 
trace his  steps  and  enter  the  parlor.  Then  he 
went  his  way  and  passed  into  Mr.  Wentworth's 
garden.  That  civilizing  process  to  which  he  had 
suggested  that  Clifford  should  be  subjected  ap- 
peared to  have  come  on  of  itself.  Felix  was 
very  sure,  at  least,  that  Mr.  Wentworth  had  not 
adopted  his  ingenious  device  for  stimulating  the 
young  man's  aesthetic  consciousness.  u  Doubtless 
he  supposes,"  he  said  to  himself,  after  the  conver- 
sation that  has  been  narrated,  u  that  I  desire,  out 
of  fraternal  benevolence,  to  procure  for  Eugenia 
the  amusement  of  a  flirtation  —  or,  as  he  probably 
calls  it,  an  intrigue  —  with  the  too  susceptible  Clif- 
ford. It  must  be  admitted — and  I  have  noticed  it 
before  —  that  nothing  exceeds  the  license  occa- 
sionally taken  by  the  imagination  of  very  rigid 
people."  Felix,  on  his  own  side,  had  of  course 
said  nothing  to  Clifford ;  but  he  had  observed  to 
Eugenia  that  Mr.  Wentworth  was  much  mortified 
at  his  son's  low  tastes.  "  We  ought  to  do  some- 
thing to  help  them,  after  all  their  kindness  to  us," 
he  had  added.  "  Encourage  Clifford  to  come  and 
see  you,  and  inspire  him  with  a  taste  for  conversa- 
tion. That  will  supplant  the  other,  which  only 
comes  from  his  puerility,  from  his  not  taking  his 


150  THE  EUROPEANS. 

position  in  the  world  —  that  of  a  rich  young  man 
of  ancient  stock — seriously  enough.  Make  him 
a  little  more  serious.  Even  if  he  makes  love  to 
you  it  is  no  great  matter." 

"  I  am  to  offer  myself  as  a  superior  form  of  in- 
toxication —  a  substitute  for  a  brandy  bottle,  eh  ?  " 
asked  the  Baroness.  "  Truly,  in  this  country  one 
comes  to  strange  uses." 

But  she  had  not  positively  declined  to  under- 
take Clifford's  higher  education,  and  Felix,  who 
had  not  thought  of  the  matter  again,  being  haunted 
with  visions  of  more  personal  profit,  now  reflected 
that  the  work  of  redemption  had  fairly  begun. 
The  idea  in  prospect  had  seemed  of  the  happiest, 
but  in  operation  it  made  him  a  trifle  uneasy. 
"  What  if  Eugenia —  what  if  Eugenia  "  — he  asked 
himself  softly ;  the  question  dying  away  in  his 
sense  of  Eugenia's  undetermined  capacity.  But 
before  Felix  had  time  either  to  accept  or  to  reject 
its  admonition,  even  in  this  vague  form,  he  saw 
Robert  Acton  turn  out  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  in- 
closure,  by  a  distant  gate,  and  come  toward  the 
cottage  in  the  orchard.  Acton  had  evidently 
walked  from  his  own  house  along  a  shady  by-way 
and  was  intending  to  pay  a  visit  to  Madame  Mini- 
ster. Felix  watched  him  a  moment ;  then  he 
turned  away.  Acton  could  be  left  to  play  the  part 
of  Providence  and  interrupt —  if  interruption  were 
needed  —  Clifford's  entanglement  with  Eugenia. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  151 

Felix  passed  through  the  garden  toward  the 
house  and  toward  a  postern  gate  which  opened 
upon  a  path  leading  across  the  fields,  beside  a  little 
wood,  to  the  lake.  He  stopped  and  looked  up  at 
the  house  ;  his  eyes  rested  more  particularly  upon 
a  certain  open  window,  on  the  shady  side.  Pres- 
ently Gertrude  appeared  there,  looking  out  into 
the  summer  light.  He  took  off  his  hat  to  her  and 
bade  her  good-day  ;  he  remarked  that  he  was  go- 
ing to  row  across  the  pond,  and  begged  that  she 
would  do  him  the  honor  to  accompany  him.  She 
looked  at  him  a  moment;  then,  without  saying 
anything,  she  turned  away.  But  she  soon  reap- 
peared below  in  one  of  those  quaint  and  charming 
Leghorn  hats,  tied  with  white  satin  bows,  that 
were  worn  at  that  period ;  she  also  carried  a  green 
parasol.  She  went  with  him  to  the  edge  of  the 
lake,  where  a  couple  of  boats  were  always  moored ; 
they  got  into  one  of  them,  and  Felix,  with  gentle 
strokes,  propelled  it  to  the  opposite  shore.  The 
day  was  the  perfection  of  summer  weather;  the 
little  lake  was  the  color  of  sunshine ;  the  plash  of 
the  oars  was  the  only  sound,  and  they  found  them- 
selves listening  to  it.  They  disembarked,  and,  by 
a  winding  path,  ascended  the  pine-crested  mound 
which  overlooked  the  water,  whose  white  expanse 
glittered  between  the  trees.  The  place  was  de- 
lightfully cool,  and  had  the  added  charm  that — in 


152  THE  EUROPEANS. 

the  softly  sounding  pine  boughs — you  seemed  to 
hear  the  coolness  as  well  as  feel  it.  Felix  and 
Gertrude  sat  down  on  the  rust-colored  carpet  of 
pine-needles  and  talked  of  many  things.  Felix 
spoke  at  last,  in  the  course  of  talk,  of  his  going 
away;  it  was  the  first  time  he  had  alluded  to  it. 

"  You  are  going  away  ?  "  said  Gertrude,  looking 
at  him. 

"  Some  day  —  when  the  leaves  begin  to  fall. 
You  know  I  can't  stay  forever." 

Gertrude  transferred  her  eyes  to  the  outer  pros- 
pect, and  then,  after  a  pause,  she  said,  "  I  shall 
never  see  you  again." 

"  Why  not  ?  "  asked  Felix.  "  We  shall  proba- 
bly both  survive  my  departure." 

But  Gertrude  only  repeated,  "  I  shall  never  see 
you  again.  I  shall  never  hear  of  you,"  she  went 
on.  "  I  shall  know  nothing  about  you.  I  knew 
nothing  about  you  before,  and  it  will  be  the  same 
again." 

"  I  knew  nothing  about  you  then,  unfortu- 
nately," said  Felix.  "  But  now  I  shall  write  to 
you." 

"  Don't  write  to  me.  I  shall  not  answer  you," 
Gertrude  declared. 

"I  should  of  course  burn  your  letters,"  said 
Felix. 

Gertrude  looked  at  him  again.  "  Burn  my  let- 
ters ?  You  sometimes  say  strange  things." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  153 

"  They  are  not  strange  in  themselves,"  the  young 
man  answered.  "  They  are  only  strange  as  said 
to  you.  You  will  come  to  Europe." 

"  With  whom  shall  I  come  ?  "  She  asked  this 
question  simply ;  she  was  very  much  in  earnest. 
Felix  was  interested  in  her  earnestness  ;  for  some 
moments  he  hesitated.  "  You  can't  tell  me  that," 
she  pursued.  "You  can't  say  that  I  shall  go 
with  my  father  and  my  sister;  you  don't  believe 
that." 

"I  shall  keep  your  letters,"  said  Felix,  pres- 
ently, for  all  answer. 

"  I  never  write.  I  don't  know  how  to  write." 
Gertrude,  for  some  time,  said  nothing  more  ;  and 
her  companion,  as  he  looked  at  her,  wished  it  had 
not  been  "disloyal  "  to  make  love  to  the  daughter 
of  an  old  gentleman  who  had  offered  one  hospital- 
ity. The  afternoon  waned ;  the  shadows  stretched 
themselves  ;  and  the  light  grew  deeper  in  the 
western  sky.  Two  persons  appeared  on  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  lake,  coming  from  the  house  and 
crossing  the  meadow.  "  It  is  Charlotte  and  Mr. 
Brand,"  said  Gertrude.  "  They  are  coming  over 
here."  But  Charlotte  and  Mr.  Brand  only  came 
down  to  the  edge  of  the  water,  and  stood  there, 
looking  across ;  they  made  no  motion  to  enter  the 
boat  that  Felix  had  left  at  the  mooring-place.  Fe- 
lix waved  his  hat  to  them  ;  it  was  too  far  to  call. 


154  THE  EUROPEANS. 

They  made  no  visible  response,  and  they  pres- 
ently turned  away  and  walked  along  the  shore. 

"  Mr.  Brand  is  not  demonstrative,"  said  Felix. 
"  He  is  never  demonstrative  to  me.  He  sits  silent, 
with  his  chin  in  his  hand,  looking  at  me.  Some- 
times he  looks  away.  Your  father  tells  me  he  is 
so  eloquent ;  and  I  should  like  to  hear  him  talk. 
He  looks  like  such  a  noble  young  man.  But  with 
me  he  will  never  talk.  And  yet  I  am  so  fond  of 
listening  to  brilliant  imagery  ! " 

"  He  is  very  eloquent,"  said  Gertrude ;  "  but  he 
has  no  brilliant  imagery.  I  have  heard  him  talk 
a  great  deal.  I  knew  that  when  they  saw  us  they 
would  not  come  over  here." 

"  Ah,  he  is  making  la  cour,  as  they  say,  to  your 
sister  ?  They  desire  to  be  alone  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Gertrude,  gravely,  "  they  have  no 
such  reason  as  that  for  being  alone." 

"But  why  does  n't  he  make  la  cour  to  Char- 
lotte ? "  Felix  inquired.  u  She  is  so  pretty,  so 
gentle,  so  good." 

Gertrude  glanced  at  him,  and  then  she  looked 
at  the  distantly-seen  couple  they  were  discussing. 
Mr.  Brand  and  Charlotte  were  walking  side  by 
side.  They  might  have  been  a  pair  of  lovers,  and 
yet  they  might  not.  "  They  think  I  should  not 
be  here,"  said  Gertrude. 

"  With  me  ?  J  thought  you  did  n't  have  those 
ideas." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  155 

"  You  don't  understand.  There  are  a  great 
many  things  you  don't  understand." 

"  I  understand  my  stupidity.  But  why,  then, 
do  not  Charlotte  and  Mr.  Brand,  who,  as  an  elder 
sister  and  a  clergyman,  are  free  to  walk  about  to- 
gether, come  over  and  make  me  wiser  by  breaking 
up  the  unlawful  interview  into  which  I  have  lured 
you  ?  " 

"  That  is  the  last  thing  they  would  do,"  said 
Gertrude. 

Felix  stared  at  her  a  moment,  with  his  lifted 
eyebrows.  "  Je  n'y  comprends  rien  !  "  he  ex- 
claimed ;  then  his  eyes  followed  for  a  while  the 
retreating  figures  of  this  critical  pair.  "  You  may 
say  what  you  please,"  he  declared  ;  "  it  is  evident 
to  me  that  your  sister  is  not  indifferent  to  her 
clever  companion.  It  is  agreeable  to  her  to  be 
walking  there  with  him.  I  can  see  that  from 
here."  And  in  the  excitement  of  observation 
Felix  rose  to  his  feet. 

Gertrude  rose  also,  but  she  made  no  attempt  to 
emulate  her  companion's  discovery  ;  she  looked 
rather  in  another  direction.  Felix's  words  had 
struck  her;  but  a  certain  delicacy  checked  her. 
"  She  is  certainly  not  indifferent  to  Mr.  Brand ; 
she  has  the  highest  opinion  of  him." 

"  One  can  see  it  —  one  can  see  it,"  said  Felix, 
in  a  tone  of  amused  contemplation,  with  his  head 
on  one  side.  Gertrude  turned  her  back  to  the  op- 


156  THE  EUROPEANS. 

posite  shore;  it  was  disagreeable  to  her  to  look, 
but  she  hoped  Felix  would  say  something  more. 
"  Ah,  they  have  wandered  away  into  the  wood," 
he  added. 

Gertrude  turned  round  again.  "  She  is  not  in 
love  with  him,"  she  said ;  it  seemed  her  duty  to 
say  that. 

"  Then  he  is  in  love  with  her  ;  or  if  he  is  not, 
he  ought  to  be.  She  is  such  a  perfect  little  woman 
of  her  kind.  She  reminds  me  of  a  pair  of  old- 
fashioned  silver  sugar-tongs  ;  you  know  I  am  very 
fond  of  sugar.  And  she  is  very  nice  with  Mr. 
Brand  ;  I  have  noticed  that;  very  gentle  and 
gracious." 

Gertrude  reflected  a  moment.  Then  she  took 
a  great  resolution.  "  She  wants  him  to  marry 
me,"  she  said.  "  So  of  course  she  is  nice." 

Felix's  eyebrows  rose  higher  than  ever.  "  To 
marry  you  !  Ah,  ah,  this  is  interesting.  And  you 
think  one  must  be  very  nice  with  a  man  to  induce 
him  to  do  that  ?  " 

Gertrude  had  turned  a  little  pale,  but  she  went 
on,  "  Mr.  Brand  wants  it  himself." 

Felix  folded  his  arms  and  stood  looking  at  her. 
"  I  see  —  I  see,"  he  said  quickly.  "  Why  did  you 
never  tell  me  this  before?" 

"It  is  disagreeable  to  me  to  speak  of  it  even 
now.  I  wished  simply  to  explain  to  you  about 
Charlotte." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  157 

"  You  don't  wish  to  marry  Mr.  Brand,  then  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Gertrude,  gravely. 

"  And  does  your  father  wish  it  ?  " 

"  Very  much." 

"  And  you  don't  like  him  —  you  have  refused 
him?" 

"  I  don't  wish  to  marry  him." 

"Your  father  and  sister  think  you  ought  to, 
eh?" 

44  It  is  a  long  story,"  said  Gertrude.  "  They 
think  there  are  good  reasons.  I  can't  explain  it. 
They  think  I  have  obligations,  and  that  I  have  en- 
couraged him." 

Felix  smiled  at  her,  as  if  she  had  been  telling 
him  an  amusing  story  about  some  one  else.  "  I 
can't  tell  you  how  this  interests  me,"  he  said. 
"  Now  you  don't  recognize  these  reasons  —  these 
obligations  ?  " 

k'  I  am  not  sure ;  it  is  not  easy."  And  she 
picked  up  her  parasol  and  turned  away,  as  if  to 
descend  the  slope. 

"  Tell  me  this,"  Felix  went  on,  going  with  her : 
"  are  you  likely  to  give  in  —  to  let  them  persuade 
you?" 

Gertrude  looked  at  him  with  the  serious  face 
that  she  had  constantly  worn,  in  opposition  to  his 
almost  eager  smile.  "  I  shall  never  marry  Mr. 
Brand,"  she  said. 

"  I  see  !  "  Felix  rejoined.     And  they  slowly  de- 


158  THE  EUROPEANS. 

scended  the  hill  together,  saying  nothing  till  they 
reached  the  margin  of  the  pond.  "  It  is  your 
own  affair,"  he  then  resumed ;  "  but  do  you  know, 
I  am  not  altogether  glad  ?  If  it  were  settled  that 
you  were  to  marry  Mr.  Brand  I  should  take  a  cer- 
tain comfort  in  the  arrangement.  I  should  feel 
more  free.  I  have  no  right  to  make  love  to  you 
myself,  eh  ?  "  And  he  paused,  lightly  pressing  his 
argument  upon  her. 

"  None  whatever,"  replied  Gertrude  quickly  — 
too  quickly. 

"  Your  father  would  never  hear  of  it ;  I  have  n't 
a  penny.  Mr.  Brand,  of  course,  has  property  of 
his  own,  eh  ?  " 

"  I  believe  he  has  some  property  ;  but  that  has 
nothing  to  do  with  it." 

"  With  you,  of  course  not ;  but  with  your  father 
and  sister  it  must  have.  So,  as  I  say,  if  this  were 
settled,  I  should  feel  more  at  liberty." 

*'  More  at  liberty  ?  "  Gertrude  repeated.  "  Please 
unfasten  the  boat." 

Felix  untwisted  the  rope  and  stood  holding  it. 
44 1  should  be  able  to  say  things  to  you  that  I  can't 
give  myself  the  pleasure  of  saying  now,"  he  went 
on.  "I  could  tell  you  how  much  I  admire  you, 
without  seeming  to  pretend  to  that  which  I  have 
no  right  to  pretend  to.  I  should  make  violent 
love  to  you,"  he  added,  laughing,  "  if  I  thought 
you  were  so  placed  as  not  to  be  offended  by  it." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  159 

"  You  mean  if  -I  were  engaged  to  another  man  ? 
That  is  strange  reasoning !  "  Gertrude  exclaimed. 

"  In  that  case  you  would  not  take  me  seri- 
ously." 

"  I  take  every  one  seriously,"  said  Gertrude. 
And  without  his  help  she  stepped  lightly  into  the 
boat. 

Felix  took  up  the  oars  and  sent  it  forward. 
"  Ah,  this  is  what  you  have  been  thinking  about  ? 
It  seemed  to  me  you  had  something  on  your  mind. 
I  wish  very  much,"  he  added,  "  that  you  would 
tell  me  some  of  these  so-called  reasons  —  these  ob- 
ligations." 

"  They  are  not  real  reasons  —  good  reasons," 
said  Gertrude,  looking  at  the  pink  and  yellow 
gleams  in  the  water. 

" 1  can  understand  that !  Because  a  handsome 
girl  has  had  a  spark  of  coquetry,  that  is  no  rea- 
son." 

"  If  you  mean  me,  it 's  not  that.  I  have  not 
done  that." 

u  It  is  something  that  troubles  you,  at  any 
rate,"  said  Felix. 

"  Not  so  much  as  it  used  to,"  Gertrude  re- 
joined. 

He  looked  at  her,  smiling  always.  "  That  is 
not  saying  much,  eh  ?  "  But  she  only  rested  her 
eyes,  very  gravely,  on  the  lighted  water.  She 


160  THE  EUROPEANS. 

seemed  to  him  to  be  trying  to  hide  the  signs  of 
the  trouble  of  which  she  had  just  told  him.  Felix 
felt,  at  all  times,  much  the  same  impulse  to  dissi- 
pate visible  melancholy  that  a  good  housewife  feels 
to  brush  away  dust.  There  was  something  he 
wished  to  brush  away  now ;  suddenly  he  stopped 
rowing  and  poised  his  oars.  "  Why  should  Mr. 
Brand  have  addressed  himself  to  you,  and  not  to 
your  sister  ?  "  he  asked.  "  I  am  sure  she  would 
listen  to  him." 

Gertrude,  in  her  family,  was  thought  capable  of 
a  good  deal  of  levity;  but  her  levity  had  never 
gone  so  far  as  this.  It  moved  her  greatly,  how- 
ever, to  hear  Felix  say  that  he  was  sure  of  some- 
thing ;  so  that,  raising  her  eyes  toward  him,  she 
tried  intently,  for  some  moments,  to  conjure  up 
this  wonderful  image  of  a  love-affair  between  her 
own  sister  and  her  own  suitor.  We  know  that 
Gertrude  had  an  imaginative  mind ;  so  that  it  is 
not  impossible  that  this  effort  should  have  been 
partially  successful.  But  she  only  murmured,  "Ah, 
Felix!  ah,  Felix!" 

"  Why  should  n't  they  marry  ?  Try  and  make 
them  marry  ! "  cried  Felix. 

"  Try  and  make  them  ?  " 

"  Turn  the  tables  on  them.  Then  they  will 
leave  you  alone.  I  will  help  you  as  far  as  I  can." 

Gertrude's  heart  began  to  beat ;  she  was  greatly 


THE  EUROPEANS.  161 

excited ;  she  had  never  had  anything  so  interest- 
ing proposed  to  her  before.  Felix  had  begun  to 
row  again,  and  he  now  sent  the  boat  home  with 
long  strokes.  "  I  believe  she  does  care  for  him  !  " 
said  Gertrude,  after  they  had  disembarked. 

"  Of  course  she  does,  and  we  will  marry  them 
off.  It  will  make  them  happy ;  it  will  make  every 
one  happy.  We  shall  have  a  wedding  and  I  will 
write  an  epithalamium." 

44  It  seems  as  if  it  would  make  me  happy,"  said 
Gertrude. 

"  To  get  rid  of  Mr.  Brand,  eh  ?  To  recover 
your  liberty  ?  " 

Gertrude  walked  on.  "  To  see  my  sister  mar- 
ried to  so  good  a  man." 

Felix  gave  his  light  laugh.  "  You  always  put 
things  on  those  grounds ;  you  will  never  say  any- 
thing for  yourself.  You  are  all  so  afraid,  here,  of 
being  selfish.  I  don't  think  you  know  how,"  he 
went  on.  "  Let  me  show  you  !  It  will  make  me 
happy  for  myself,  and  for  just  the  reverse  of  what 
I  told  you  a  while  ago.  After  that,  when  I  make 
love  to  you,  you  will  have  to  think  I  mean  it." 

"  I  shall  never  think  you  mean  anything,"  said 
Gertrude.  "  You  are  too  fantastic." 

"  Ah,"   cried   Felix,   "  that 's  a  license  to  say 
everything  !     Gertrude,  I  adore  you  !  " 
11 


VIII. 

CHARLOTTE  and  Mr.  Brand  had  not  returned 
when  they  reached  the  house  ;  but  the  Baroness 
had  come  to  tea,  and  Robert  Acton  also,  who  now 
regularly  asked  for  a  place  at  this  generous  repast 
or  made  his  appearance  later  in  the  evening. 
Clifford  Wentworth,  with  his  juvenile  growl,  re- 
marked upon  it. 

"  You  are  always  coming  to  tea  nowadays,  Rob- 
ert," he  said.  "  I  should  think  you  had  drunk 
enough  tea  in  China." 

44  Since  when  is  Mr.  Acton  more  frequent  ?  " 
asked  the  Baroness. 

"  Since  you  came,"  said  Clifford.  "  It  seems 
as  if  you  were  a  kind  of  attraction." 

"  I  suppose  I  am  a  curiosity,"  said  the  Bar- 
oness. "  Give  me  time  and  I  will  make  you  a 
salon." 

44  It  would  fall  to  pieces  after  you  go  !  "  ex- 
claimed Acton. 

44  Don't  talk  about  her  going,  in  that  familiar 
way,"  Clifford  said.  "  It  makes  me  feel  gloomy." 

Mr.  Wentworth  glanced  at  his  son,  and  taking 


THE  EUROPEANS.  163 

note  of  tliese  words,  wondered  if  Felix  had  been 
teaching  him,  according  to  the  programme  he  had 
sketched  out,  to  make  love  to  the  wife  of  a  Ger- 
man prince. 

Charlotte  came  in  late  with  Mr.  Brand  ;  but 
Gertrude,  to  whom,  at  least,  Felix  had  taught 
something,  looked  in  vain,  in  her  face,  for  the 
traces  of  a  guilty  passion.  Mr.  Brand  sat  down 
by  Gertrude,  and  she  present^  asked  him  why 
they  had  not  crossed  the  pond  to  join  Felix  and 
herself. 

"  It  is  cruel  of  you  to  ask  me  that,"  he  an- 
swered, very  softly.  He  had  a  large  morsel  of 
cake  before  him  ;  but  he  fingered  it  without  eat- 
ing it.  "  I  sometimes  think  you  are  growing 
cruel,"  he  added. 

Gertrude  said  nothing  ;  she  was  afraid  to  speak. 
There  was  a  kind  of  rage  in  her  heart ;  she  felt  as 
if  she  could  easily  persuade  herself  that  she  was 
persecuted.  She  said  to  herself  that  it  was  quite 
right  that  she  should  not  allow  him  to  make  her 
believe  she  was  wrong.  She  thought  of  what 
Felix  had  said  to  her  ;  she  wished  indeed  Mr. 
Brand  would  marry  Charlotte.  She  looked  away 
from  him  and  spoke  no  more.  Mr.  Brand  ended 
by  eating  his  cake,  while  Felix  sat  opposite,  de- 
scribing to  Mr.  Wentworth  the  students'  duels  at 
Heidelberg.  After  tea  they  all  dispersed  them- 


164  THE  EUROPEANS. 

selves,  as  usual,  upon  the  piazza  and  in  the  gar- 
den ;  and  Mr.  Brand  drew  near  to  Gertrude  again. 

"  I  did  n't  come  to  you  this  afternoon  because 
you  were  not  alone,"  he  began  ;  "  because  you 
were  with  a  newer  friend." 

"  Felix  ?     He  is  an  old  friend  by  this  time." 

Mr.  Brand  looked  at  the  ground  for  some  mo- 
ments. "I  thought  I  was  prepared  to  hear  you 
speak  in  that  way,"  he  resumed.  "  But  I  find  it 
very  painful." 

44 1  don't  see  what  else  I  can  say,"  said  Ger- 
trude. 

Mr.  Brand  walked  beside  her  for  a  while  in 
silence;  Gertrude  wished  he  would  go  away. 
44  He  is  certainly  very  accomplished.  But  I  think 
I  ought  to  advise  you." 

44  To  advise  me  ?  " 

44 1  think  I  know  your  nature." 

44 1  think  you  don't,"  said  Gertrude,  with  a  soft 
laugh. 

44  You  make  yourself  out  worse  than  you  are  — 
to  please  him,"  Mr.  Brand  said,  gently. 

44  Worse  —  to  please  him  ?  What  do  you 
mean  ?  "  asked  Gertrude,  stopping. 

Mr.  Brand  stopped  also,  and  with  the  same  soft 
straightforwardness,  44He  doesn't  care  for  the 
things  you  care  for —  the  great  questions  of  life." 

Gertrude,  with  her  eyes  on  his,  shook  her  head. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  165 

"  I  don't  care  for  the  great  questions  of  life.  They 
are  much  beyond  me." 

44  There  was  a  time  when  you  did  n't  say  that," 
said  Mr.  Brand. 

44  Oh,"  rejoined  Gertrude,  "  I  think  you  made 
me  talk  a  great  deal  of  nonsense.  And  it  de- 
pends," she  added,  "  upon  what  you  call  the  great 
questions  of  life.  There  are  some  things  I  care 
for." 

"  Are  they  the  things  you  talk  about  with  your 
cousin  ?  " 

"  You  should  not  say  things  to  me  against  my 
cousin,  Mr.  Brand,"  said  Gertrude.  4t  That  is 
dishonorable." 

He  listened  to  this  respectfully  ;  then  he  an- 
swered, with  a  little  vibration  of  the  voice,  4t  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  do  anything  dishonorable. 
But  I  don't  see  why  it  is  dishonorable  to  say  that 
your  cousin  is  frivolous." 

44  Go  and  say  it  to  himself !  " 

44 1  think  he  would  admit  it,"  said  Mr.  Brand. 
44  That  is  the  tone  he  would  take.  He  would  not 
be  ashamed  of  it." 

44  Then  I  am  not  ashamed  of  it ! "  Gertrude 
declared.  44  That  is  probably  what  I  like  him  for. 
I  am  frivolous  myself." 

44  You  are  trying,  as  I  said  just  now,  to  lower 
yourself." 


166  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  I  am  trying  for  once  to  be  natural !  "  cried 
Gertrude  passionately.  u  I  have  been  pretend- 
ing, all  my  life  ;  I  have  been  dishonest ;  it  is  you 
that  have  made  me  so!  "  Mr.  Brand  stood  gaz- 
ing at  her,  and  she  went  on,  "  Why  should  n't  I 
be  frivolous,  if  I  want  ?  One  has  a  right  to  be 
frivolous,  if  it 's  one's  nature.  No,  I  don't  care 
for  the  great  questions.  I  care  for  pleasure  —  for 
amusement.  Perhaps  I  am  fond  of  wicked  things  ; 
it  is  very  possible  !  " 

Mr.  Brand  remained  staring  ;  he  was  even  a 
little  pale,  as  if  he  had  been  frightened.  "  I  don't 
think  you  know  what  you  are  saying ! "  he  ex- 
claimed. 

"  Perhaps  not.  Perhaps  I  am  talking  nonsense. 
But  it  is  only  with  you  that  I  talk  nonsense.  I 
never  do  so  with  my  cousin." 

"  I  will  speak  to  you  again,  when  you  are  less 
excited,"  said  Mr.  Brand. 

" 1  am  always  excited  when  you  speak  to  me. 
I  must  tel«l  you  that  —  even  if  it  prevents  you 
altogether,  in  future.  Your  speaking  to  me  irri- 
tates me.  With  my  cousin  it  is  very  different. 
That  seems  quiet  and  natural." 

He  looked  at  her,  and  then  he  looked  away, 
with  a  kind  of  helpless  distress,  at  the  dusky  gar- 
den and  the  faint  summer  stars.  After  which, 
suddenly  turning  back,  "  Gertrude,  Gertrude  !  " 
he  softly  groaned.  "Am  I  really  losing  you  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  167 

She  was  touched — she  was  pained  ;  but  it  had 
already  occurred  to  her  that  she  might  do  some- 
thing better  than  say  so.  It  would  not  have  alle- 
viated her  companion's  distress  to  perceive,  just 
then,  whence  she  had  sympathetically  borrowed 
this  ingenuity.  "  I  am  not  sorry  for  you,"  Ger- 
trude said  ;  "  for  in  paying  so  much  attention  to 
me  you  are  following  a  shadow  —  you  are  wast- 
ing something  precious.  There  is  something  else 
you  might  have  that  you  don't  look  at  —  some- 
thing better  than  I  am.  That  is  a  reality  !  "  And 
then,  with  intention,  she  looked  at  him  and  tried 
to  smile  a  little.  He  thought  this  smile  of  hers 
very  strange  ;  but  she  turned  away  and  left  him. 

She  wandered  about  alone  in  the  garden  won- 
dering what  Mr.  Brand  would  make  of  her  words, 
which  it  had  been  a  singular  pleasure  for  her  to 
utter.  Shortly  after,  passing  in  front  of  the  house, 
she  saw  at  a  distance  two  persons  standing  near 
the  garden  gate.  It  was  Mr.  Brand  going  away 
and  bidding  good-night  to  Charlotte,  who  had 
walked  down  with  him  from  the  house.  Gertrude 
saw  that  the  parting  was  prolonged.  Then  she 
turned  her  back  upon  it.  She  had  not  gone  very 
far,  however,  when  she  heard  her  sister  slowly 
following  her.  She  neither  turned  round  nor 
waited  for  her;  she  knew  what  Charlotte  was 
going  to  say.  Charlotte,  who  at  last  overtook 


168  THE  EUROPEANS. 

her,  in  fact  presently  began  ;  she  had  passed  her 
arm  into  Gertrude's. 

"  Will  you  listen  to  me,  dear,  if  I  say  something 
very  particular  ?  " 

44 1  know  what  you  are  going  to  say,"  said  Ger- 
trude. 44  Mr.  Brand  feels  very  badly." 

44  Oh,  Gertrude,  how  can  you  treat  him  so  ? '" 
Charlotte  demanded.  And  as  her  sister  made  no 
answer  she  added,  44  After  all  he  has  done  for 
you ! " 

44  What  has  he  done  for  me  ?  " 

44 1  wonder  you  can  ask,  Gertrude.  He  has 
helped  you  so.  You  told  me  so  yourself,  a  great 
many  times.  You  told  me  that  he  helped  you  to 
struggle  with  your  —  your  peculiarities.  You  told 
me  that  he  had  taught  you  how  to  govern  your 
temper." 

For  a  moment  Gertrude  said  nothing.  Then, 
44  Was  my  temper  very  bad?  "  she  asked. 

44 1  am  not  accusing  you,  Gertrude,"  said  Char- 
lotte. 

44  What  are  you  doing,  then  ?  "  her  sister  de- 
manded, with  a  short  laugh. 

44 1  am  pleading  for  Mr.  Brand  —  reminding  you 
of  all  you  owe  him." 

44 1  have  given  it  all  back,"  said  Gertrude,  still 
with  her  little  laugh.  44  He  can  take  back  the 
virtue  he  imparted  !  I  want  to  be  wicked  again." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  169 

Her  sister  made  her  stop  in  the  path,  and  fixed 
upon  her,  in  the  darkness,  a  sweet,  reproachful 
gaze.  "  If  you  talk  this  way  I  shall  almost  be- 
lieve it.  Think  of  all  we  owe  Mr.  Brand.  Think 
of  how  he  has  always  expected  something  of  you. 
Think  how  much  he  has  been  to  us.  Think  of 
his  beautiful  influence  upon  Clifford." 

44  He  is  very  good,"  said  Gertrude,  looking  at 
her  sister.  "  I  know  he  is  very  good.  But  he 
should  n't  speak  against  Felix." 

"  Felix  is  good,"  Charlotte  answered,  softly  but 
promptly.  "  Felix  is  very  wonderful.  Only  he 
is  so  different.  Mr.  Brand  is  much  nearer  to  us. 
I  should  never  think  of  going  to  Felix  with  a 
trouble  —  with  a  question.  Mr.  Brand  is  much 
more  to  us,  Gertrude." 

"  He  is  very  —  very  good,"  Gertrude  repeated. 
"  He  is  more  to  you ;  yes,  much  more.  Charlotte," 
she  added  suddenly,  "  you  are  in  love  with  him  !  " 

44  Oh,  Gertrude  !  "  cried  poor  Charlotte  ;  and 
her  sister  saw  her  blushing  in  the  darkness. 

Gertrude  put  her  arm  round  her.  "  I  wish  he 
would  marry  you  !  "  she  went  on. 

Charlotte  shook  herself  free.  "  You  must  not 
say  such  things ! "  she  exclaimed,  beneath  her 
breath. 

44  You  like  him  more  than  you  say,  and  he  likes 
you  more  than  he  knows." 


170  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  This  is  very  cruel  of  you  !  "  Charlotte  Went- 
worth  murmured. 

But  if  it  was  cruel  Gertrude  continued  pitiless. 
"  Not  if  it 's  true,"  she  answered.  "  I  wish  he 
would  marry  you." 

"  Please  don't  say  that." 

"  I  mean  to  tell  him  so  !  "  said  Gertrude. 

"  Oh,  Gertrude,  Gertrude  !  "  her  sister  almost 
moaned. 

"  Yes,  if  he  speaks  to  me  again  about  myself. 
I  will  say,  '  Why  don't  you  marry  Charlotte  ? 
She  's  a  thousand  times  better  than  I.' ' 

"  You  are  wicked ;  you  are  changed !  "  cried  her 
sister. 

"  If  you  don't  like  it  you  can  prevent  it,"  said 
Gertrude.  "  You  can  prevent  it  by  keeping  him 
from  speaking  to  me  ?  "  And  with  this  she  walked 
away,  very  conscious  of  what  she  had  done ;  meas- 
uring it  and  finding  a  certain  joy  and  a  quickened 
sense  of  freedom  in  it. 

Mr.  Wentworth  was  rather  wide  of  the  mark  in 
suspecting  that  Clifford  had  begun  to  pay  unscru- 
pulous compliments  to  his  brilliant  cousin ;  for  the 
young  man  had  really  more  scruples  than  he  re- 
ceived credit  for  in  his  family.  He  had  a  certain 
transparent  shamefacedness  which  was  in  itself  a 
proof  that  he  was  not  at  his  ease  in  dissipation. 
His  collegiate  peccadilloes  had  aroused  a  domestic 


THE  EUROPEANS.  171 

murmur  as  disagreeable  to  the  young  man  as  the 
creaking  of  his  boots  would  have  been  to  a  house- 
breaker. Only,  as  the  house-breaker  would  have 
simplified  matters  by  removing  his  chaussures,  it 
had  seemed  to  Clifford  that  the  shortest  cut  to 
comfortable  relations  with  people  —  relations  which 
should  make  him  cease  to  think  that  when  they 
spoke  to  him  they  meant  something  improving 
—  was  to  renounce  all  ambition  toward  a  nefari- 
ous development.  And,  in  fact,  Clifford's  ambition 
took  the  most  commendable  form.  He  thought  of 
himself  in  the  future  as  the  well-known  and  much- 
liked  Mr.  Wentworth,  of  Boston,  who  should,  in 
the  natural  course  of  prosperity,  have  married 
his  pretty  cousin,  Lizzie  Acton ;  should  live  in  a 
wide-fronted  house,  in  view  of  the  Common  ;  and 
should  drive,  behind  a  light  wagon,  over  the  damp 
autumn  roads,  a  pair  of  beautifully  matched  sorrel 
horses.  Clifford's  vision  of  the  coming  years  was 
very  simple  ;  its  most  definite  features  were  this 
element  of  familiar  matrimony  and  the  duplication 
of  his  resources  for  trotting.  He  had  not  yet  asked 
his  cousin  to  marry  him  ;  but  he  meant  to  do  so 
as  soon  as  he  had  taken  his  degree.  Lizzie  was 
serenely  conscious  of  his  intention,  and  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  that  he  would  improve.  Her 
brother,  who  was  very  fond  of  this  light,  quick, 
competent  little  Lizzie,  saw  on  his  side  no  reason 


172  THE  EUROPEANS. 

to  interpose.  It  seemed  to  him  a  graceful  social 
law  that  Clifford  and  his  sister  should  become  en- 
gaged ;  he  himself  was  not  engaged,  but  every  one 
else,  fortunately,  was  not  such  a  fool  as  he.  He 
was  fond  of  Clifford,  as  well,  and  had  his  own 
way  —  of  which  it  must  be  confessed  he  was  a  little 
ashamed  —  of  looking  at  those  aberrations  which 
had  led  to  the  young  man's  compulsory  retirement 
from  the  neighboring  seat  of  learning.  Acton  had 
seen  the  world,  as  he  said  to  himself ;  he  had  been 
to  China  and  had  knocked  about  among  men. 
He  had  learned  the  essential  difference  between  a 
nice  young  fellow  and  a  mean  young  fellow,  and 
was  satisfied  that  there  was  no  harm  in  Clifford. 
He  believed  —  although  it  must  be  added  that  he 
had  not  quite  the  courage  to  declare  it — in  the 
doctrine  of  wild  oats,  and  thought  it  a  useful  pre- 
ventive of  superfluous  fears.  If  Mr.  Wentworth 
and  Charlotte  and  Mr.  Brand  would  only  apply  it 
in  Clifford's  case,  they  would  be  happier ;  and  Ac- 
ton thought  it  a  pity  they  should  not  be  happier. 
They  took  the  boy's  misdemeanors  too  much  to 
heart ;  they  talked  to  him  too  solemnly  ;  they 
frightened  and  bewildered  him.  Of  course  there 
was  the  great  standard  of  morality,  which  forbade 
that  a  man  should  get  tipsy,  play  at  billiards  for 
money,  or  cultivate  his  sensual  consciousness ;  but 
what  fear  was  there  that  poor  Clifford  was  going 


THE  EUROPEANS.  173 

to  run  a  tilt  at  any  great  standard  ?  It  had,  how- 
ever, never  occurred  to  Acton  to  dedicate  the  Baro- 
ness Miinster  to  the  redemption  of  a  refractory  col- 
legian. The  instrument,  here,  would  have  seemed 
to  him  quite  too  complex  for  the  operation.  Felix, 
on  the  other  hand,  had  spoken  in  obedience  to  the 
belief  that  the  more  charming  a  woman  is  the 
more  numerous,  literally,  are  her  definite  social 
uses. 

Eugenia  herself,  as  we  know,  had  plenty  of  lei- 
sure to  enumerate  her  uses.  As  I  have  had  the 
honor  of  intimating,  she  had  come  four  thousand 
miles  to  seek  her  fortune  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  sup- 
posed that  after  this  great  effort  she  could  neglect 
any  apparent  aid  to  advancement.  It  is  my  mis- 
fortune that  in  attempting  to  describe  in  a  short 
compass  the  deportment  of  this  remarkable  woman 
I  am  obliged  to  express  things  rather  brutally.  I 
feel  this  to  be  the  case,  for  instance,  when  I  say 
that  she  had  primarily  detected  such  an  aid  to  ad- 
vancement in  the  person  of  Robert  Acton,  but  that 
she  had  afterwards  remembered  that  a  prudent 
archer  has  always  a  second  bowstring.  Eugenia 
was  a  woman  of  finely-mingled  motive,  and  her 
intentions  were  never  sensibly  gross.  She  had  a 
sort  of  sesthetic  ideal  for  Clifford  which  seemed  to 
her  a  disinterested  reason  for  taking  him  in  hand. 
It  was  very  well  for  a  fresh-colored  young  gentle- 


174  THE  EUROPEANS. 

man  to  be  ingenuous ;  but  Clifford,  really,  was 
crude.  With  such  a  pretty  face  he  ought  to  have 
prettier  manners.  She  would  teach  him  that, 
with  a  beautiful  name,  the  expectation  of  a  large 
property,  and,  as  they  said  in  Europe,  a  social 
position,  an  only  son  should  know  how  to  carry 
himself. 

Once  Clifford  had  begun  to  come  and  see  her  by 
himself  and  for  himself,  he  came  very  often.  He 
hardly  knew  why  he  should  come  ;  he  saw  her  al- 
most every  evening  at  his  father's  house ;  he  had 
nothing  particular  to  say  to  her.  She  was  not  a 
young  girl,  and  fellows  of  his  age  called  only  upon 
young  girls.  He  exaggerated  her  age ;  she  seemed 
to  him  an  old  woman  ;  it  was  happy  that  the 
Baroness,  with  all  her  intelligence,  was  incapable 
of  guessing  this.  But  gradually  it  struck  Clifford 
that  visiting  old  women  might  be,  if  not  a  natural, 
at  least,  as  they  say  of  some  articles  of  diet,  an  ac- 
quired taste.  The  Baroness  was  certainly  a  very 
amusing  old  woman  ;  she  talked  to  him  as  no  lady 
—  and  indeed  no  gentleman  —  had  ever  talked  to 
him  before. 

"  You  should  go  to  Europe  and  make  the  tour," 
she  said  to  him  one  afternoon.  "  Of  course,  on 
leaving  college  you  will  go." 

"I  don't  want  to  go,"  Clifford  declared.  "I 
know  some  fellows  who  have  been  to  Europe. 
They  say  you  can  have  better  fun  here." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  175 

"  That  depends.  It  depends  upon  your  idea  of 
fun.  Your  friends  probably  were  not  introduced." 

"  Introduced  ?  "  Clifford  demanded. 

"  They  had  no  opportunity  of  going  into  socie- 
ty; they  formed  no  relations"  This  was  one  of  a 
certain  number  of  words  that  the  Baroness  often 
pronounced  in  the  French  manner. 

"  They  went  to  a  ball,  in  Paris  ;  I  know  that," 
said  Clifford. 

"  Ah,  there  are  balls  and  balls ;  especially  in 
Paris.  No,  you  must  go,  you  know ;  it  is  not  a 
thing  from  which  you  can  dispense  yourself.  You 
need  it." 

"  Oh,  I  'm  very  well,"  said  Clifford.  "  I  'm  not 
sick." 

"  I  don't  mean  for  your  health,  my  poor  child. 
I  mean  for  your  manners." 

"  I  have  n't  got  any  manners  !  "  growled  Clifford. 

"  Precisely.  You  don't  mind  my  assenting  to 
that,  eh  ?  "  asked  the  Baroness  with  a  smile.  "  You 
must  go  to  Europe  and  get  a  few.  You  can  get 
them  better  there.  It  is  a  pity  you  might  not 
have  come  while  I  was  living  in  —  in  Germany. 
I  would  have  introduced  you;  I  had  a  charming 
little  circle.  You  would  perhaps  have  been  rather 
young  ;  but  the  younger  one  begins,  I  think,  the 
better.  Now,  at  any  rate,  you  have  no  time  to 
lose,  and  when  I  return  you  must  immediately 
come  to  me." 


176  THE  EUROPEANS. 

All  this,  to  Clifford's  apprehension,  was  a  great 
mixture  —  his  beginning  young,  Eugenia's  return 
to  Europe,  his  being  introduced  to  her  charming 
little  circle.  What  was  he  to  begin,  and  what  was 
her  little  circle  ?  His  ideas  about  her  marriage  had 
a  good  deal  of  vagueness  ;  but  they  were  in  so  far 
definite  as  that  he  felt  it  to  be  a  matter  not  to  be 
freely  mentioned.  He  sat  and  looked  all  round 
the  room ;  he  supposed  she  was  alluding  in  some 
way  to  her  marriage. 

"  Oh,  I  don't  want  to  go  to  Germany,"  he  said ; 
it  seemed  to  him  the  most  convenient  thing  to  say. 

She  looked  at  him  a  while,  smiling  with  her 
lips,  but  not  with  her  eyes. 

"  You  have  scruples  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Scruples  ?  "  said  Clifford. 

"  You  young  people,  here,  are  very  singular ; 
one  doesn't  know  where  to  expect  you.  When 
you  are  not  extremely  improper  you  are  so  terri- 
bly proper.  I  dare  say  you  think  that,  owing  to 
my  irregular  marriage,  I  live  with  loose  people. 
You  were  never  more  mistaken.  I  have  been  all 
the  more  particular." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Clifford,  honestly  distressed. 
"  I  never  thought  such  a  thing  as  that." 

"  Are  you  very  sure?  I  am  convinced  that 
your  father  does,  and  your  sisters.  They  say  to 
each  other  that  here  I  am  on  my  good  behavior, 


THE  EUROPEANS.  177 

but  that  over  there  —  married  by  the  left  hand  — 
I  associate  with  light  women." 

"  Oh,  no,"  cried  Clifford,  energetically,  "  they 
don't  say  such  things  as  that  to  each  other  ! " 

"  If  they  think  them  they  had  better  say  them," 
the  Baroness  rejoined.  "  Then  they  can  be  con- 
tradicted. Please  contradict  that  whenever  you 
hear  it,  and  don't  be  afraid  of  coming  to  see  me 
on  account  of  the  company  I  keep.  I  have  the 
honor  of  knowing  more  distinguished  men,  my 
poor  child,  than  you  are  likely  to  see  in  a  life-time. 
I  see  very  few  women ;  but  those  are  women  of 
rank.  So,  my  dear  young  Puritan,  you  needn't 
be  afraid.  I  am  not  in  the  least  one  of  those  who 
think  that  the  society  of  women  who  have  lost 
their  place  in  the  vrai  monde  is  necessary  to  form 
a  young  man.  I  have  never  taken  that  tone.  I 
have  kept  my  place  myself,  and  I  think  we  are  a 
much  better  school  than  the  others.  Trust  me, 
Clifford,  and  I  will  prove  that  to  you,"  the  Bar- 
oness continued,  while  she  made  the  agreeable  re- 
flection that  she  could  not,  at  least,  be  accused  of 
perverting  her  young  kinsman.  "  So  if  you  ever 
fall  among  thieves  don't  go  about  saying  I  sent 
you  to  them." 

Clifford  thought  it  so  comical  that  he  should 
know  —  in  spite  of  her  figurative  language  — 
what  she  meant,  and  that  she  should  mean  what 

J-2 


178  THE  EUROPEANS. 

he  knew,  that  he  could  hardly  help  laughing  a 
little,  although  he  tried  hard.  *'  Oh,  no  !  oh,  no  !  " 
he  murmured. 

"  Laugh  out,  laugh  out,  if  I  amuse  you  !  "  cried 
the  Baroness.  "  I  am  here  for  that !  "  And 
Clifford  thought  her  a  very  amusing  person  in- 
deed. "  But  remember,"  she  said  on  this  occasion, 
"  that  you  are  coming  —  next  year  —  to  pay  me 
a  visit  over  there." 

About  a  week  afterwards  she  said  to  him,  point- 
blank,  "  Are  you  seriously  making  love  to  your 
little  cousin  ?  " 

"  Seriously  making  love  "  —  these  words,  on 
Madame  Miinster's  lips,  had  to  Clifford's  sense  a 
portentous  and  embarrassing  sound;  he  hesitated 
about  assenting,  lest  he  should  commit  himself  to 
more  than  he  understood.  "  Well,  I  should  n't 
say  it  if  I  was  !  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  Why  would  n't  you  say  it  ?  "  the  Baroness  de- 
manded. "  Those  things  ought  to  be  known." 

"  I  don't  care  whether  it  is  known  or  not," 
Clifford  rejoined.  "  But  I  don't  want  people  look- 
ing at  me." 

"  A  young  man  of  your  importance  ought  to 
learn  to  bear  observation — to  carry  himself  as  if 
he  were  quite  indifferent  to  it.  I  won't  say,  ex- 
actly, unconscious,"  the  Baroness  explained.  "  No, 
he  must  seem  to  know  he  is  observed,  and  to 


THE  EUROPEANS.  179 

think  it  natural  he  should  be  ;  but  he  must  ap- 
pear perfectly  used  to  it.  Now  you  have  n't  that, 
Clifford  ;  you  have  n't  that  at  all.  You  must  have 
that,  you  know.  Don't  tell  me  you  are  not  a 
young  man  of  importance,"  Eugenia  added. 
Don't  say  anything  so  flat  as  that." 

"  Oh,  no,  you  don't  catch  me  saying  that !  " 
cried  Clifford. 

"  Yes,  you  must  come  to  Germany,"  Madame 
Minister  continued.  "  I  will  show  you  how  people 
can  be  talked  about,  and  yet  not  seem  to  know  it. 
You  will  be  talked  about,  of  course,  with  me ;  it 
will  be  said  you  are  my  lover.  I  will  show  you 
how  little  one  may  mind  that  —  how  little  I  shall 
mind  it." 

Clifford  sat  staring,  blushing  and  laughing.  "  I 
shall  mind  it  a  good  deal !  "  he  declared. 

"  Ah,  not  too  much,  you  know  ;  that  would  be 
uncivil.  But  I  give  you  leave  to  mind  it  a  little  ; 
especially  if  you  have  a  passion  for  Miss  Acton. 
Voyons  ;  as  regards  that,  you  either  have  or  you 
have  not.  It  is  very  simple  to  say  it." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  want  to  know,"  said 
Clifford. 

"  You  ought  to  want  me  to  know.  If  one  is 
arranging  a  marriage,  one  tells  one's  friends." 

"  Oh,  I'm  not  arranging  anything,"  said  Clifford. 

"  You  don't  intend  to  marry  your  cousin  ?  " 


180  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Well,  I  expect  I  shall  do  as  I  choose  !  " 

The  Baroness  leaned  her  head  upon  the  back  of 
her  chair  and  closed  her  eyes,  as  if  she  were  tired. 
Then  opening  them  again,  "  Your  cousin  is  very 
charming !  "  she  said. 

"  She  is  the  prettiest  girl  in  this  place,"  Clifford 
rejoined. 

"  '  In  this  place '  is  saying  little  ;  she  would  be 
charming  anywhere.  I  am  afraid  you  are  entan- 
gled." 

"  Oh,  no,  I  'm  not  entangled." 

"Are  you  engaged?  At  your  age  that  is  the 
same  thing." 

Clifford  looked  at  the  Baroness  with  some  au- 
dacity. "  Will  you  tell  no  one?  " 

"  If  it 's  as  sacred  as  that  —  no." 

"  Well,  then  — we  are  not !  "  said  Clifford. 

"  That 's  the  great  secret  —  that  you  are  not, 
eh  ?  "  asked  the  Baroness,  with  a  quick  laugh. 
"  I  am  very  glad  to  hear  it.  You  are  altogether 
too  young.  A  young  man  in  your  position  must 
choose  and  compare ;  he  must  see  the  world  first. 
Depend  upon  it,"  she  added,  "you  should  not 
settle  that  matter  before  you  have  come  abroad 
and  paid  me  that  visit.  There  are  several  things 
I  should  like  to  call  your  attention  to  first." 

"  Well,  I  am  rather  afraid  of  that  visit,"  said 
Clifford.  "  It  seems  to  me  it  will  be  rather  like 
going  to  school  again." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  181 

The  Baroness  looked  at  him  a  moment. 

"  My  dear  child,"  she  said,  "  there  is  no  agreea- 
ble man  who  has  not,  at  some  moment,  been  to 
school  to  a  clever  woman  —  probably  a  little  older 
than  himself.  And  you  must  be  thankful  when 
you  get  your  instructions  gratis.  With  me  you 
would  get  it  gratis." 

The  next  day  Clifford  told  Lizzie  Acton  that 
the  Baroness  thought  her  the  most  charming  girl 
she  had  ever  seen. 

Lizzie  shook  her  head.  "  No,  she  does  n't !  " 
she  said. 

"  Do  you  think   everything  she  says,"  asked 
Clifford,  "  is  to  be  taken  the  opposite  way  ?  " 

"  I  think  that  is  !  "  said  Lizzie. 

Clifford  was  going  to  remark  that  in  this  case 
the  Baroness  must  desire  greatly  to  bring  about  a 
marriage  'between  Mr.  Clifford  Went  worth  and 
Miss  Elizabeth  Acton ;  but  he  resolved,  on  the 
whole,  to  suppress  this  observation. 


IX. 

IT  seemed  to  Robert  Acton,  after  Eugenia  had 
come  to  his  house,  that  something  had  passed  be- 
tween them  which  made  them  a  good  deal  more 
intimate.  It  was  hard  to  say  exactly  what,  except 
her  telling  him  that  she  had  taken  her  resolution 
with  regard  to  the  Prince  Adolf;  for  Madame 
Minister's  visit  had  made  no  difference  in  their  re- 
lations. He  came  to  see  her  very  often  ;  but  he 
had  come  to  see  her  very  often  before.  It  was 
agreeable  to  him  to  find  himself  in  her  little  draw- 
ing-room ;  but  this  was  not  a  new  discovery. 
There  was  a  change,  however,  in  this  se*nse :  that 
if  the  Baroness  had  been  a  great  deal  in  Acton's 
thoughts  before,  she  was  now  never  out  of  them. 
From  the  first  she  had  been  personally  fascinat- 
ing; but  the  fascination  now  had  become  intel- 
lectual as  well.  He  was  constantly  pondering  her 
words  and  motions ;  they  were  as  interesting  as 
the  factors  in  an  algebraic  problem.  This  is  say- 
ing a  good  deal ;  for  Acton  was  extremely  fond  of 
mathematics.  He  asked  himself  whether  it  could 
be  that  he  was  in  love  with  her,  and  then  hoped 


THE  EUROPEANS.  183 

he  was  not ;  hoped  it  not  so  much  for  his  own  sake 
as  for  that  of  the  amatory  passion  itself.  If  this 
was  love,  love  had  been  overrated.  Love  was  a 
poetic  impulse,  and  his  own  state  of  feeling  with 
regard  to  the  Baroness  was  largely  characterized 
by  that  eminently  prosaic  sentiment  —  curiosity. 
It  was  true,  as  Acton  with  his  quietly  cogitative 
habit  observed  to  himself,  that  curiosity,  pushed  to 
a  given  point,  might  become  a  romantic  passion  ; 
and  he  certainly  thought  enough  about  this  charm- 
ing woman  to  make  him  restless  and  even  a  little 
melancholy.  It  puzzled  and  vexed  him  at  times 
to  feel  that  he  was  not  more  ardent.  He  was  not 
in  the  least  bent  upon  remaining  a  bachelor.  In 
his  younger  years  he  had  been  —  or  he  had  tried 
to  be  —  of  the  opinion  that  it  would  be  a  good  deal 
"  jollier  "  not  to  marry,  and  he  had  flattered  him- 
self that  his  single  condition  was  something  of  a 
citadel.  It  was  a  citadel,  at  all  events,  of  which 
he  had  long  since  leveled  the  outworks.  He  had 
removed  the  guns  from  the  ramparts ;  he  had 
lowered  the  draw-bridge  across  the  moat.  The 
draw-bridge  had  swayed  lightly  under  Madame 
Miinster's  step ;  why  should  he  not  cause  it  to  be 
raised  again,  so  that  she  might  be  kept  prisoner  ? 
He  had  an  idea  that  she  would  become  —  in  time 
at  least,  arid  on  learning  the  conveniences  of  the 
place  for  making  a  lady  comfortable  —  a  tolerably 


184  THE   EUROPEANS. 

patient  captive.  But  the  draw-bridge  was  never 
raised,  and  Acton's  brilliant  visitor  was  as  free  to 
depart  as  she  had  been  to  come.  It  was  part  of 
his  curiosity  to  know  why  the  deuce  so  susceptible 
a  man  was  not  in  love  with  so  charming  a  woman. 
If  her  various  graces  were,  as  I  have  said,  the  fac- 
tors in  an  algebraic  problem,  the  answer  to  this 
question  was  the  indispensable  unknown  quantity, 
The  pursuit  of  the  unknown  quantity  was  ex- 
tremely absorbing ;  for  the  present  it  taxed  all 
Acton's  faculties. 

Toward  the  middle  of  August  he  was  obliged  to 
leave  home  for  some  days ;  an  old  friend,  with 
whom  he  had  been  associated  in  China,  had  begged 
him  to  come  to  Newport,  where  he  lay  extremely 
ill.  His  friend  got  better,  and  at  the  end  of  a  week 
Acton  was  released.  I  use  the  word  "  released  " 
advisedly;  for  in  spite  of  his  attachment  to  his 
Chinese  comrade  he  had  been  but  a  half-hearted 
visitor.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  been  called  away 
from  the  theatre  during  the  progress  of  a  remarka- 
bly interesting  drama.  The  curtain  was  up  all  this 
time,  and  he  was  losing  the  fourth  act ;  that  fourth 
act  which  would  have  been  so  essential  to  a  just 
appreciation  of  the  fifth.  In  other  words,  he  was 
thinking  about  the  Baroness,  who,  seen  at  this 
distance,  seemed  a  truly  brilliant  figure.  He  saw 
at  Newport  a  great  many  pretty  women,  who  cer- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  185 

tainly  were  figures  as  brilliant  as  beautiful  light 
dresses  could  make  them ;  but  though  they  talked 
a  great  deal  —  and  the  Baroness's  strong  point  was 
perhaps  also  her  conversation  —  Madame  Minister 
appeared  to  lose  nothing  by  the  comparison.  He 
wished  she  had  come  to  Newport  too.  Would  it 
not  be  possible  to  make  up,  as  they  said,  a  party 
for  visiting  the  famous  watering-place  and  invite 
Eugenia  to  join  it  ?  It  was  true  that  the  complete 
satisfaction  would  be  to  spend  a  fortnight  at  New- 
port with  Eugenia  alone.  It  would  be  a  great 
pleasure  to  see  her,  in  society,  carry  everything 
before  her,  as  he  was  sure  she  would  do.  When 
Acton  caught  himself  thinking  these  thoughts  he 
began  to  walk  up  and  down,  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets,  frowning  a  little  and  looking  at  the  floor. 
What  did  it  prove  —  for  it  certainly  proved  some- 
thing—  this  lively  disposition  to  be  "off"  some- 
where with  Madame  Miinster,  away  from  all  the 
rest  of  them  ?  Such  a  vision,  certainly,  seemed  a 
refined  implication  of  matrimony,  after  the  Baron- 
ess should  have  formally  got  rid  of  her  informal 
husband.  At  any  rate,  Acton,  with  his  character- 
istic discretion,  forbore  to  give  expression  to  what- 
ever else  it  might  imply,  and  the  narrator  of  these 
incidents  is  not  obliged  to  be  more  definite. 

He  returned  home  rapidly,  and,  arriving  in  the 
afternoon,  lost  as  little  time  as  possible  in  joining 


186  THE  EUROPEANS. 

the  familiar  circle  at  Mr.  Wentworth's.  On  reach- 
ing the  house,  however,  he  found  the  piazzas 
empty.  The  doors  and  windows  were  open,  and 
their  emptiness  was  made  clear  by  the  shafts  of 
lamp-light  from  the  parlors.  Entering  the  house, 
he  found  Mr.  Wentworth  sitting  alone  in  one  of 
these  apartments,  engaged  in  the  perusal  of  the 
"  North  American  Review."  After  they  had  ex- 
changed greetings  and  his  cousin  had  made  dis- 
creet inquiry  about  his  journey,  Acton  asked  what 
had  become  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  companions. 

"  They  are  scattered  about,  amusing  themselves 
as  usual,"  said  the  old  man.  "  I  saw  Charlotte,  a 
short  time  since,  seated,  with  Mr.  Brand,  upon  the 
piazza.  They  were  conversing  with  their  custom- 
ary animation.  I  suppose  they  have  joined  her 
sister,  who,  for  the  hundredth  time,  was  doing  the 
honors  of  the  garden  to  her  foreign  cousin." 

"  I  suppose  you  mean  Felix,"  said  Acton.  And 
on  Mr.  Wentworth's  assenting,  he  said,  "  And  the 
others  ?  " 

"  Your  sister  has  not  come  this  evening.  You 
must  have  seen  her  at  home,"  said  Mr.  Went- 
worth. 

"  Y^es.  I  proposed  to  her  to  come.  She  de- 
clined." 

"  Lizzie,  I  suppose,  was  expecting  a  visitor,"  said 
the  old  man,  with  a  kind  of  solemn  slyness. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  187 

"  If  she  was  expecting  Clifford,  he  had  not 
turned  up." 

Mr.  Wentworth,  at  this  intelligence,  closed  the 
"  North  American  Review  "  and  remarked  that  he 
had  understood  Clifford  to  say  that  he  was  going 
to  see  his  cousin.  Privately,  he  reflected  that  if 
Lizzie  Acton  had  had  no  news  of  his  son,  Clifford 
must  have  gone  to  Boston  for  the  evening  :  an  un- 
natural course  of  a  summer  night,  especially  when 
accompanied  with  disingenuous  representations. 

"  You  must  remember  that  he  has  two  cousins," 
said  Acton,  laughing.  And  then,  coming  to  the 
point,  "If  Lizzie  is  not  here,"  he  added,  "neither 
apparently  is  the  Baroness." 

"  Mr.  Wentworth  stared  a  moment,  and  remem- 
bered that  queer  proposition  of  Felix's.  For  a 
moment  he  did  not  know  whether  it  was  not  to  be 
wished  that  Clifford,  after  all,  might  have  gone  to 
Boston.  "The  Baroness  has  not  honored  us  to- 
night," he  said.  "  She  has  not  come  over  for  three 
days." 

"Is  she  ill?"  Acton  asked. 

"  No ;  I  have  been  to  see  her." 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  her  ?  " 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth,  "  I  infer  she  has 
tired  of  us." 

Acton  pretended  to  sit  down,  but  he  was  rest- 
less ;  he  found  it  impossible  to  talk  with  Mr. 


188  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Wentworth.  At  the  end  of  ten  minutes  he  took 
up  his  hat  and  said  that  he  thought  he  would  "  go 
off."  It  was  very  late  ;  it  was  ten  o'clock. 

His  quiet-faced  kinsman  looked  at  him  a  mo- 
ment. "  Are  you  going  home  ?  "  he  asked. 

Acton  hesitated,  and  then  answered  that  he  had 
proposed  to  go  over  and  take  a  look  at  the  Bar- 
oness. 

"Well,  you  are  honest,  at  least,"  said  Mr. 
Wentworth,  sadly. 

"  So  are  you,  if  you  come  to  that  ?  "  cried  Ac- 
ton, laughing.  "  Why  should  n't  I  be  honest  ?  " 

The  old  man  opened  the  "  North  American " 
again,  and  read  a  few  lines.  "If  we  have  ever 
had  any  virtue  among  us,  we  had  better  keep  hold 
of  it  now,"  he  said.  He  was  not  quoting. 

"  We  have  a  Baroness  among  us,"  said  Acton. 
"  That 's  what  we  must  keep  hold  of  ! "  He  was 
too  impatient  to  see  Madame  Miinster  again  to 
wonder  what  Mr.  •  Wentworth  was  talking  about. 
Nevertheless,  after  he  had  passed  out  of  the  house 
and  traversed  the  garden  and  the  little  piece  of 
road  that  separated  him  from  Eugenia's  provisional 
residence,  he  stopped  a  moment  outside.  He  stood 
in  her  little  garden  ;  the  long  window  of  her  parlor 
was  open,  and  he  could  see  the  white  curtains, 
with  the  lamp-light  shining  through  them,  sway- 
ing softly  to  and  fro  in  the  warm  night  wind. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  189 

There  was  a  sort  of  excitement  in  the  idea  of  see- 
ing Madame  Miinster  again ;  he  became  aware 
that  his  heart  was  beating  rather  faster  than  usual. 
It  was  this  that  made  him  stop,  with  a  half-amused 
surprise.  But  in  a  moment  he  went  along  the  pi- 
azza, and,  approaching  the  open  window,  tapped 
upon  its  lintel  with  his  stick.  He  could  see  the 
Baroness  within ;  she  was  standing  in  the  middle 
of  the  room.  She  came  to  the  window  and  pulled 
aside  the  curtain ;  then  she  stood  looking  at  him  a 
moment.  She  was  not  smiling ;  she  seemed  serious. 

"Mais  entrez  done!"  she  said  at  last.  Acton 
passed  in  across  the  window-sill ;  he  wondered,  for 
an  instant,  what  was  the  matter  with  her.  But 
the  next  moment  she  had  begun  to  smile  and  had 
put  out  her  hand.  "Better  late  than  never,"  she 
said.  "  It  is  very  kind  of  you  to  come  at  this  hour." 

"  I  have  just  returned  from  my  journey,"  said 
Acton. 

"  Ah,  very  kind,  very  kind,"  she  repeated,  look- 
ing about  her  where  to  sit. 

"  I  went  first  to  the  other  house,"  Acton  con- 
tinued. "  I  expected  to  find  you  there." 

She  had  sunk  into  her  usual  chair ;  but  she  got 
up  again,  and  began  to  move  about  the  room. 
Acton  had  laid  down  his  hat  and  stick ;  he  was 
looking  at  her,  conscious  that  there  was  in  fact  a 
great  charm  in  seeing  her  again.  "  I  don't  know 


190  THE  EUROPEANS. 

whether  I  ought  to  tell  you  to  sit  down,"  she  said. 
"It  is  too  late  to  begin  a  visit." 

"  It 's  too  early  to  end  one,"  Acton  declared ; 
"and  we  needn't  mind  the  beginning." 

She  looked  at  him  again,  and,  after  a  moment, 
dropped  once  more  into  her  low  chair,  while  he 
took  a  place  near  her.  "  We  are  in  the  middle, 
then  ? "  she  asked.  "  Was  that  where  we  were 
when  you  went  away  ?  No,  I  have  n't  been  to  the 
other  house." 

"  Not  yesterday,  nor  the  day  before,  eh  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  how  many  days  it  is." 

"  You  are  tired  of  it,"  said  Acton. 

She  leaned  back  in  her  chair;  her  arms  were 
folded.  "  That  is  a  terrible  accusation,  but  I  have 
not  the  courage  to  defend  myself." 

"  I  am  not  attacking  you,"  said  Acton.  "  I  ex- 
pected something  of  this  kind." 

"  It 's  a  proof  of  extreme  intelligence.  I  hope 
you  enjoyed  your  journey." 

"  Not  at  all,"  Acton  declared.  "  I  would  much 
rather  have  been  here  with  you." 

"Now  you  are  attacking  me,"  said  the  Bar- 
oness. "  You  are  contrasting  my  inconstancy  with 
your  own  fidelity." 

"  I  confess  I  never  get  tired  of  people  I  like." 

"Ah,  you  are  not  a  poor  wicked  foreign  woman, 
with  irritable  nerves  and  a  sophisticated  mind  !  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  191 

"  Something  has  happened  to  you  since  I  went 
away,"  said  Acton,  changing  his  place. 

"  Your  going  away — that  is  what  has  happened 
to  me." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you  have  missed 
me  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  If  I  had  meant  to  say  it,  it  would  not  be  worth 
your  making  a  note  of.  I  am  very  dishonest  and 
my  compliments  are  worthless." 

Acton  was  silent  for  some  moments.  "  You 
have  broken  down,"  he  said  at  last. 

Madame  Miinster  left  her  chair,  and  began  to 
move  about. 

"  Only  for  a  moment.  I  shall  pull  myself  to- 
gether again." 

"  You  had  better  not  take  it  too  hard.  If  you 
are  bored,  you  need  n't  be  afraid  to  say  so  —  to  me 
at  least." 

"You  shouldn't  say  such  things  as  that,"  the 
Baroness  answered.  "  You  should  encourage  me." 

"  I  admire  your  patience ;  that  is  encouraging." 

"  You  should  n't  even  say  that.  When  you  talk 
of  my  patience  you  are  disloyal  to  your  own  peo- 
ple. Patience  implies  suffering ;  and  what  have  I 
had  to  suffer?" 

"  Oh,  not  hunger,  not  unkindness,  certainly," 
said  Acton,  laughing.  "  Nevertheless,  we  all  ad- 
mire your  patience." 


192  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  You  all  detest  me  I  "  cried  the  Baroness,  with  a 
sudden  vehemence,  turning  her  back  toward  him. 

"  You  make  it  hard,  said  Acton,  getting  up, 
"  for  a  man  to  say  something  tender  to  you." 
This  evening  there  was  something  particularly 
striking  and  touching  about  her ;  an  unwonted 
softness  and  a  look  of  suppressed  emotion.  He 
felt  himself  suddenly  appreciating  the  fact  that 
she  had  behaved  very  well.  She  had  come  to  this 
quiet  corner  of  the  world  under  the  weight  of  a 
cruel  indignity,  and  she  had  been  so  gracefully, 
modestly  thankful  for  the  rest  she  found  there. 
She  had  joined  that  simple  circle  over  the  way; 
she  had  mingled  in  its  plain,  provincial  talk  ;  she 
had  shared  its  meagre  and  savorless  pleasures. 
She  had  set  herself  a  task,  and  she  had  rigidly 
performed  it.  She  had  conformed  to  the  angular 
conditions  of  New  England  life,  and  she  had  had 
the  tact  and  pluck  to  carry  it  off  as  if  she  liked 
them.  Acton  felt  a  more  downright  need  than  he 
had  ever  felt  before  to  tell  her  that  he  admired 
her  and  that  she  struck  him  as  a  very  superior 
woman.  All  along,  hitherto,  he  had  been  on  his 
guard  with  her ;  he  had  been  cautious,  observant, 
suspicious.  But  now  a  certain  light  tumult  in  his 
blood  seemed  to  tell  him  that  a  finer  degree  of  con- 
fidence in  this  charming  woman  would  be  its  own 
reward.  "  We  don't  detest  you,"  he  went  on. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  193 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean.  At  any  rate,  I 
speak  for  myself;  I  don't  know  anything  about 
the  others.  Very  likely,  you  detest  them  for  the 
dull  life  they  make  you  lead.  Really,  it  would 
give  me  a  sort  of  pleasure  to  hear  you  say  so." 

Eugenia  had  been  looking  at  the  door  on  the 
other  side  of  the  room  ;  now  she  slowly  turned  her 
eyes  toward  Robert  Acton.  "What  can  be  the 
motive,"  she  asked,  "  of  a  man  like  you  —  an  hon- 
est man,  a  galant  homme  —  in  saying  so  base  a 
thing  as  that  ?  " 

"  Does  it  sound  very  base  ?  "  asked  Acton,  can- 
didly. "I  suppose  it  does,  and  I  thank  you  for 
telling  me  so.  Of  course,  I  don't  mean  it  liter- 
ally." 

The  Baroness  stood  looking  at  him.  "  How  do 
you  mean  it?  "  she  asked. 

This  question  was  difficult  to  answer,  and  Ac- 
ton, feeling  the  least  bit  foolish,  walked  to  the 
open  window  and  looked  out.  He  stood  there, 
thinking  a  moment,  and  then  he  turned  back. 
"  You  know  that  document  that  you  were  to  send 
to  Germany,"  he  said.  "  You  called  it  your  '  re- 
nunciation.' Did  you  ever  send  it  ?  " 

Madame  Miinster's  eyes  expanded  ;  she  looked 
very  grave.  "What  a  singular  answer  to  my 
question !  " 

"  Oh,  it  is  n't  an  answer,"  said  Acton.    "  I  have 

13 


194  THE  EUROPEANS. 

wished  to  ask  you,  many  times.  I  thought  it  prob- 
able you  would  tell  me  yourself.  The  question, 
on  my  part,  seems  abrupt  now ;  but  it  would  be 
abrupt  at  any  time." 

The  Baroness  was  silent  a  moment ;  and  then, 
"  I  think  I  have  told  you  too  much  !  "  she  said. 

This  declaration  appeared  to  Acton  to  have  a  cer- 
tain force ;  he  had  indeed  a  sense  of  asking  more 
of  her  than  he  offered  her.  He  returned  to  the 
window,  and  watched,  for  a  moment,  a  little  star 
that  twinkled  through  the  lattice  of  the  piazza. 
There  were  at  any  rate  offers  enough  he  could 
make;  perhaps  he  had  hitherto  not  been  suffi- 
ciently explicit  in  doing  so.  "I  wish  you  would 
ask  something  of  me,"  he  presently  said.  "Is 
there  nothing  I  can  do  for  you  ?  If  you  can't  stand 
this  dull  life  any  more,  let  me  amuse  you !  " 

The  Baroness  had  sunk  once  more  into  a  chair, 
and  she  had  taken  up  a  fan  which  she  held,  with 
both  hands,  to  her  mouth.  Over  the  top  of  the 
fan  her  eyes  were  fixed  on  him.  "  You  are  very 
strange  to-night,"  she  said,  with  a  little  laugh. 

"  I  will  do  anything  in  the  world,"  he  rejoined, 
standing  in  front  of  her.  "  Should  n't  you  like  to 
travel  about  and  see  something  of  the  country? 
Won't  you  go  to  Niagara?  You  ought  to  see 
Niagara,  you  know." 

"  With  you,  do  you  mean  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  195 

"  I  should  be  delighted  to  take  you." 

"  You  alone  ?  " 

Acton  looked  at  her,  smiling,  and  yet  with  a 
serious  air.  "  Well,  yes ;  we  might  go  alone,"  he 
said. 

"  If  you  were  not  what  you  are,"  she  answered, 
"I  should  feel  insulted." 

"  How  do  you  mean  —  what  I  am  ?  " 

"  If  you  were  one  of  the  gentlemen  I  have  been 
used  to  all  my  life.  If  you  were  not  a  queer  Bos- 
tonian." 

"  If  the  gentlemen  you  have  been  used  to  have 
taught  you  to  expect  insults,"  said  Acton7  "  I  am 
glad  I  am  what  I  am.  You  had  much  better  come 
to  Niagara." 

"  If  you  wish  to  '  amuse '  me,"  the  Baroness  de- 
clared, "  you  need  go  to  no  further  expense.  You 
amuse  me  very  effectually." 

He  sat  down  opposite  to  her  ;  she  still  held  her 
fan  up  to  her  face,  with  her  eyes  only  showing 
above  it.  There  was  a  moment's  silence,  and  then 
he  said,  returning  to  his  former  question,  "  Have 
you  sent  that  document  to  Germany  ?  " 

Again  there  was  a  moment's  silence.  The  ex- 
pressive eyes  of  Madame  Miinster  seemed,  how- 
ever, half  to  break  it. 

"  I  will  tell  you  — at  Niagara  !  "  she  said. 

She  had  hardly  spoken  when  the  door  at  the  fur- 


196  THE  EUROPEANS. 

ther  end  of  the  room  opened  —  the  door  upon 
which,  some  minutes  previous,  Eugenia  had  fixed 
her  gaze.  Clifford  Wentworth  stood  there,  blush- 
ing and  looking  rather  awkward.  The  Baroness 
rose,  quickly,  and  Acton,  more  slowly,  did  the 
same.  Clifford  gave  him  no  greeting ;  he  was 
looking  at  Eugenia. 

"  Ah,  you  were  here  ?  "  exclaimed  Acton. 

"  He  was  in  Felix's  studio,"  said  Madame  Mini- 
ster. "  He  wanted  to  see  his  sketches." 

Clifford  looked  at  Robert  Acton,  but  said  noth- 
ing ;  he  only  fanned  himself  with  his  hat.  "  You 
chose  a  bad  moment,"  said  Acton  ;  "  you  had  n't 
much  light." 

"  I  had  n't  any  !  "  said  Clifford,  laughing. 

"  Your  candle  went  out  ?  "  Eugenia  asked. 
"  You  should  have  come  back  here  and  lighted  it 
again." 

Clifford  looked  at  her  a  moment.  "  So  I  have 
—  come  back.  But  I  have  left  the  candle  !  " 

Eugenia  turned  away.  "  You  are  very  stupid, 
my  poor  boy.  You  had  better  go  home." 

"  Well,"  said  Clifford,  "  good  night !  " 

"  Have  n't  you  a  word  to  throw  to  a  man  when 
he  has  safely  returned  from  a  dangerous  journey  ?  " 
Acton  asked. 

"  How  do  you  do  ?  "  said  Clifford.  "  I  thought 
—  I  thought  you  were  "  —  and  he  paused,  looking 
at  the  Baroness  again. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  197 

"  You  thought  I  was  at  Newport,  eh  ?   So  I  was 

—  this  morning." 

"  Good  night,  clever  child !  "  said  Madame  Miin- 
ster,  over  her  shoulder. 

Clifford  stared  at  her  —  not  at  all  like  a  clever 
child ;  and  then,  with  one  of  his  little  facetious 
growls,  took  his  departure. 

"  What  is  the  matter  with  him  ?  "  asked  Acton, 
when  he  was  gone.  "  He  seemed  rather  in  a  mud- 
dle." 

Eugenia,  who  was  near  the  window,  glanced  out, 
listening  a  moment.  "  The  matter  —  the  matter  " 

—  she  answered.     "  But  you  don't  say  such, things 
here." 

"  If  you  mean  that  he  had  been  drinking  a  lit- 
tle, you  can  say  that." 

"  He  does  n't  drink  any  more.  I  have  cured 
him.  And  in  return  — he 's  in  love  with  me." 

It  was  Acton's  turn  to  stare.  He  instantly 
thought  of  his  sister ;  but  he  said  nothing  about 
her.  He  began  to  laugh.  "  I  don't  wonder  at  his 
passion  !  But  I  wonder  at  his  forsaking  your  so- 
ciety for  that  of  your  brother's  paint-brushes." 

Eugenia  was  silent  a  little.  "  He  had  not  been 
in  the  studio.  I  invented  that  at  the  moment." 

"  Invented  it  ?     For  what  purpose  ?  " 

"  He  has  an  idea  of  being  romantic.  He  has 
adopted  the  habit  of  coming  to  see  me  at  midnight 


198  THE  EUROPEANS. 

—  passing  only  through  the  orchard  and  through 
Felix's  painting-room,  which  has  a  door  opening 
that  way.  It  seems  to  amuse  him,"  added  Eu- 
genia, with  a  little  laugh. 

Acton  felt  more  surprise  than  he  confessed  to, 
for  this  was  a  new  view  of  Clifford,  whose  irregu- 
larities had  hitherto  been  quite  without  the  ro- 
mantic element.  He  tried  to  laugh  again,  but  he 
felt  rather  too  serious,  and  after  a  moment's  hes- 
itation his  seriousness  explained  itself.  "  I  hope 
you  don't  encourage  him,"  he  said.  "  He  must 
not  be  inconstant  to  poor  Lizzie." 

"  To  your  sister  ?  " 

"You  know  they  are  decidedly  intimate,"  said 
Acton. 

"Ah,"  cried  Eugenia,  smiling,  "has  she — has 
she  "— 

"  I  don't  know,"  Acton  interrupted,  "  what  she 
has.  But  I  always  supposed  that  Clifford  had  a 
desire  to  make  himself  agreeable  to  her." 

44  Ah,  par  exemple !  "  the  Baroness  went  on. 
"  The  little  monster !  The  next  time  he  becomes 
sentimental  I  will  him  tell  that  he  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  himself." 

Acton  was  silent  a  moment.  "  You  had  better 
say  nothing  about  it." 

"  I  had  told  him  as  much  already,  on  general 
grounds,"  said  the  Baroness.  "  But  in  this  coun- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  199 

try,  you  know,  the  relations  of  young  people  are 
so  extraordinary  that  one  is  quite  at  sea.  They 
are  not  engaged  when  you  would  quite  say  they 
ought  to  be.  Take  Charlotte  Went  worth,  for  in- 
stance, and  that  young  ecclesiastic.  If  I  were  her 
father  I  should  insist  upon  his  marrying  her ;  but 
it  appears  to  be  thought  there  is  no  urgency.  On 
the  other  hand,  you  suddenly  learn  that  a  boy  of 
twenty  and  a  little  girl  who  is  still  with  her  gov- 
erness— your  sister  has  no  governess?  Well,  then, 
who  is  never  away  from  her  mamma  —  a  young 
couple,  in  short,  between  whom  you  have  noticed 
nothing  beyond  an  exchange  of  the  childish  pleas- 
antries characteristic  of  their  age,  are  on  the  point 
of  setting  up  as  man  and  wife."  The  Baroness 
spoke  with  a  certain  exaggerated  volubility  which 
was  in  contrast  with  the  languid  grace  that  had 
characterized  her  manner  before  Clifford  made  his 
appearance.  It  seemed  to  Acton  that  there  was 
a  spark  of  irritation  in  her  eye  —  a  note  of  irony 
(as  when  she  spoke  of  Lizzie  being  never  away 
from  her  mother)  in  her  voice.  If  Madame  Miin- 
ster  was  irritated,  Robert  Acton  was  vaguely  mys- 
tified ;  she  began  to  move  about  the  room  again, 
and  he  looked  at  her  without  saying  anything. 
Presently  she  took  out  her  watch,  and,  glancing 
at  it,  declared  that  it  was  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning  and  that  he  must  go. 


200  TEE  EUROPEANS. 

"  I  have  not  been  here  an  hour,"  he  said,  "  and 
they  are  still  sitting  up  at  the  other  house.  You 
can  see  the  lights.  Your  brother  has  not  come  in." 

"  Oh,  at  the  other  house,"  cried  Eugenia,  "  they 
are  terrible  people !  I  don't  know  what  they 
may  do  over  there.  I  am  a  quiet  little  humdrum 
woman;  I  have  rigid  rules  and  I  keep  them. 
One  of  them  is  not  to  have  visitors  in  the  small 
hours  —  especially  clever  men  like  you.  So  good 
night !  " 

Decidedly,  the  Baroness  was  incisive ;  and 
though  Acton  bade  her  good  night  and  departed, 
he  was  still  a  good  deal  mystified. 

The  next  day  Clifford  Wentworth  came  to  see 
Lizzie,  and  Acton,  who  was  at  home  and  saw  him 
pass  through  the  garden,  took  note  of  the  circum- 
stance. He  had  a  natural  desire  to  make  it  tally 
with  Madame  Minister's  account  of  Clifford's  dis- 
affection ;  but  his  ingenuity,  finding  itself  unequal 
to  the  task,  resolved  at  last  to  ask  help  of  the 
young  man's  candor.  He  waited  till  he  saw  him 
going  away,  and  then  he  went  out  and  overtook 
him  in  the  grounds. 

"  I  wish  very  much  you  would  answer  me  a 
question,"  Acton  said.  "  What  were  you  doing, 
last  night,  at  Madame  Miinster's  ?  " 

Clifford  began  to  laugh  and  to  blush,  by  no 
means  like  a  young  man  with  a  romantic  secret. 
"  What  did  she  tell  you  ?  "  he  asked. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  201 

"  That  is  exactly  what  I  don't  want  to  say." 

"  Well,  I  want  to  tell  you  the  same,"  said  Clif- 
ford ;  "  and  unless  I  know  it  perhaps  I  can't." 

They  had  stopped  in  a  garden  path ;  Acton 
looked  hard  at  his  rosy  young  kinsman.  "  She 
said  she  could  n't  fancy  what  had  got  into  you ; 
you  appeared  to  have  taken  a  violent  dislike  to 
her." 

Clifford  stared,  looking  a  little  alarmed.  "  Oh, 
come,"  he  growled,  "  you  don't  mean  that !" 

"And  that  when — for  common  civility's  sake 
—  you  came  occasionally  to  the  house  you  left  her 
alone  and  spent  your  time  in  Felix's  studio,  under 
pretext  of  looking  at  his  sketches." 

"  Oh,  come  !  "  growled  Clifford,  again. 

"  Did  you  ever  know  me  to  tell  an  untruth  ?  " 

"  Yes,  lots  of  them  ! "  said  Clifford,  seeing  an 
opening,  out  of  the  discussion,  for  his  sarcastic 
powers.  "  Well,"  he  presently  added,  "  I  thought 
you  were  my  father." 

"  You  knew  some  one  was  there  ?  " 

"  We  heard  you  coming  in." 

Acton  meditated.  "You  had  been  with  the 
Baroness,  then  ?  " 

"  I  was  in  the  parlor.  We  heard  your  step  out- 
side. I  thought  it  was  my  father." 

"  And  on  that,"  asked  Acton,  "  you  ran  away  ?  " 

"  She  told  me  to  go  —  to  go  out  by  the  studio.'* 


202  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Acton  meditated  more  intensely  ;  if  there  had 
been  a  chair  at  hand  he  would  have  sat  down. 
"  Why  should  she  wish  you  not  to  meet  your 
father?" 

«  Well,"  said  Clifford,  "  father  does  n't  like  to 
see  me  there.'* 

Acton  looked  askance  at  his  companion  and 
forbore  to  make  any  comment  upon  this  asser- 
tion. "  Has  he  said  so,"  he  asked,  "  to  the  Baron- 
ess? " 

"  Well,  I  hope  not,"  said  Clifford.  "  He  has  n't 
said  so  —  in  so  many  words  —  to  me.  But  I 
know  it  worries  him ;  and  I  want  to  stop  worry- 
ing him.  The  Baroness  knows  it,  and  she  wants 
me  to  stop,  too." 

"  To  stop  coming  to  see  her?" 

"  I  don't  know  about  that ;  but  to  stop  worry- 
ing father.  Eugenia  knows  everything,"  Clifford 
added,  with  an  air  of  knowingness  of  his  own. 

"  Ah,"  said  Acton,  interrogatively,  "  Eugenia 
knows  everything  ?  " 

"  She  knew  it  was  not  father  coming  in." 

"  Then  why  did  you  go  ?  " 

Clifford  blushed  and  laughed  afresh.  "  Well, 
I  was  afraid  it  was.  And  besides,  she  told  me  to 
go,  at  any  rate." 

"  Did  she  think  it  was  I  ?  "  Acton  asked. 

"  She  did  n't  say  so." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  203 

Again  Robert  Acton  reflected.  "But  you  did  n't 
go,"  he  presently  said  ;  "you  came  back." 

"  I  could  n't  get  out  of  the  studio,"  Clifford  re- 
joined. "  The  door  was  locked,  and  Felix  has 
nailed  some  planks  across  the  lower  half  of  the 
confounded  windows  to  make  the  light  come  in 
from  above.  So  they  were  no  use.  I  waited 
there  a  good  while,  and  then,  suddenly,  I  felt 
ashamed.  I  did  n't  want  to  be  hiding  away  from 
my  own  father.  I  could  n't  stand  it  any  longer. 
I  bolted  out,  and  when  I  found  it  was  you  I  was 
a  little  flurried.  But  Eugenia  carried  it  off,  did 
n't  she?"  Clifford 'added,  in  the  tone  of  a  young 
humorist  whose  perception  had  not  been  perma- 
nently clouded  by  the  sense  of  his  own  discom- 
fort. 

"  Beautifully !  "  said  Acton.  "  Especially,"  he 
continued,  "  when  one  remembers  that  you  were 
very  imprudent  and  that  she  must  have  been  a 
good  deal  annoyed." 

"  Oh,"  cried  Clifford,  with  the  indifference  of  a 
young  man  who  feels  that  however  he  may  have 
failed  of  felicity  in  behavior  he  is  extremely  just 
in  his  impressions,  "Eugenia  does  n't  care  for  any- 
thing!" 

Acton  hesitated  a  moment.  "  Thank  you  for 
telling  me  this,"  he  said  at  last.  And  then,  lay- 


204  THE  EUROPEANS. 

ing  Ms  hand  on  Clifford's  shoulder,  he  added, 
"  Tell  me  one  thing  more :  are  you  by  chance  a 
little  in  love  with  the  Baroness  ?  " 

"  No,  sir  ! "  said  Clifford,  almost  shaking  off  his 
hand. 


X. 

THE  first  Sunday  that  followed  Robert  Acton's 
return  from  Newport  witnessed  a  change  in  the 
brilliant  weather  that  had  long  prevailed.  The 
rain  began  to  fall  and  the  day  was  cold  and 
dreary.  Mr.  Wentworth  and  his  daughters  put  on 
overshoes  and  went  to  church,  and  Felix  Young, 
without  overshoes,  went  also,  holding  an  umbrella 
over  Gertrude.  It  is  to  be  feared  that,  in  the 
whole  observance,  this  was  the  privilege  he  most 
highly  valued.  The  Baroness  remained  at  home  ; 
she  was  in  neither  a  cheerful  nor  a  devotional 
mood.  She  had,  however,  never  been,  during  her 
residence  in  the  United  States,  what  is  called  a" 
regular  attendant  at  divine  service ;  and  on  this 
particular  Sunday  morning  of  which  I  began  with 
speaking  she  stood  at  the  window  of  her  little 
drawing-room,  watching  the  long  arm  of  a  rose- 
tree  that  was  attached  to  her  piazza,  but  a  portion 
of  which  had  disengaged  itself,  sway  to  and  fro, 
shake  and  gesticulate,  against  the  dusky  drizzle  of 
the  sky.  Every  now  and  then,  in  a  gust  of  wind, 
the  rose-tree  scattered  a  shower  of  water-drops 


206  THE  EUROPEANS. 

against  the  window-pane;  it  appeared  to  have  a 
kind  of  human  movement  —  a  menacing,  warn- 
ing intention.  The  room  was  very  cold  ;  Mad- 
ame Miinster  put  on  a  shawl  and  walked  about. 
Then  she  determined  to  have  some  fire ;  and  sum- 
moning her  ancient  negress,  the  contrast  of  whose 
polished  ebony  and  whose  crimson  turban  had 
been  at  first  a  source  of  satisfaction  to  her,  she 
made  arrangements  for  the  production  of  a  crack- 
ling flame.  This  old  woman's  name  was  Azarina. 
The  Baroness  had  begun  by  thinking  that  there 
would  be  a  savory  wildness  in  her  talk,  and,  for 
amusement,  she  had  encouraged  her  to  chatter. 
But  Azarina  was  dry  and  prim  ;  her  conversation 
was  anything  but  African  ;  she  reminded  Eugenia 
of  the  tiresome  old  ladies  she  met  in  society.  She 
knew,  however,  how  to  make  a  fire  ;  so  that  after 
she  had  laid  the  logs,  Eugenia,  who  was  terribly 
bored,  found  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  entertainment 
in  sitting  and  watching  them  blaze  and  sputter. 
She  had  thought  it  very  likely  Robert  Acton  would 
come  and  see  her ;  she  had  not  met  him  since 
that  infelicitous  evening.  But  the  morning  waned 
without  his  coming ;  several  times  she  thought  she 
heard  his  step  on  the  piazza ;  but  it  was  only  a 
window-shutter  shaking  in  a  rain -gust.  The  Bar- 
oness, since  the  beginning  of  that  episode  in  her 
career  of  which  a  slight  sketch  has  been  attempted 


THE  EUROPEANS.  207 

in  these  pages,  had  had  many  moments  of  irrita- 
tion. But  to-day  her  irritation  had  a  peculiar 
keenness ;  it  appeared  to  feed  upon  itself.  It 
urged  her  to  do  something ;  but  it  suggested  no 
particularly  profitable  line  of  action.  If  she  could 
have  done  something  at  the  moment,  on  the  spot, 
she  would  have  stepped  upon  a  European  steamer 
and  turned  her  back,  with  a  kind  of  rapture,  upon 
that  profoundly  mortifying  failure,  her  visit  to  her 
American  relations.  It  is  not  exactly  apparent 
why  she  should  have  termed  this  enterprise  a  fail- 
ure, inasmuch  as  she  had  been  treated  with  the 
highest  distinction  for  which  allowance  had  been 
made  in  American  institutions.  Her  irritation 
came,  at  bottom,  from  the  sense,  which,  always 
present,  had  suddenly  grown  acute,  that  the  social 
soil  on  this  big,  vague  continent  was  somehow  not 
adapted  for  growing  those  plants  whose  fragrance 
she  especially  inclined  to  inhale  and  by  which  she 
liked  to  see  herself  surrounded  —  a  species  of  vege- 
tation for  which  she  carried  a  collection  of  seed- 
lings, as  we  may  say,  in  her  pocket.  She  found 
her  chief  happiness  in  the  sense  of  exerting  a  cei 
tain  power  and  making  a  certain  impression ;  and 
now  she  felt  the  annoyance  of  a  rather  wearied 
swimmer  who,  on  nearing  shore,  to  land,  finds  a 
smooth  straight  wall  of  rock  when  he  had  counted 
upon  a  clean  firm  beach.  Her  power,  in  the  Amer- 


208  THE  EUROPEANS. 

lean  air,  seemed  to  have  lost  its  prehensile  attri- 
butes ;  the  smooth  wall  of  rock  was  insurmount- 
able. "Surely  je  n'en  suis  pas  la,"  she  said  to 
herself,  "  that  I  let  it  make  me  uncomfortable  that 
a  Mr.  Robert  Acton  shouldn't  honor  me  with  a 
visit !  "  Yet  she  was  vexed  that  he  had  not  come ; 
and  she  was  vexed  at  her  vexation. 

Her  brother,  at  least,  came  in,  stamping  in  the 
hall  and  shaking  the  wet  from  his  coat.  In  a 
moment  he  entered  the  room,  with  a  glow  in  his 
cheek  and  half-a-dozen  rain-drops  glistening  on 
his  mustache.  "  Ah,  you  have  a  fire,"  he  said. 

"  Les  beaux  jours  sont  passes,"  replied  the  Bar- 
oness. 

"  Never,  never !  They  have  only  begun,"  Felix 
declared,  planting  himself  before  the  hearth.  He 
turned  his  back  to  the  fire,  placed  his  hands  be- 
hind him,  extended  his  legs  and  looked  away 
through  the  window  with  an  expression  of  face 
which  seemed  to  denote  the  perception  of  rose- 
color  even  in  the  tints  of  a  wet  Sunday. 

His  sister,  from  her  chair,  looked  up  at  him, 
watching  him ;  and  what  she  saw  in  his  face  was 
not  grateful  to  her  present  mood.  She  was  puz- 
zled by  many  things,  but  her  brother's  disposition 
was  a  frequent  source  of  wonder  to  her.  I  say 
frequent  and  not  constant,  for  there  were  long 
periods  during  which  she  gave  her  attention  to 


THE  EUROPEANS.  209 

other  problems.  Sometimes  she  had  said  to  her- 
self that  his  happy  temper,  his  eternal  gayety,  was 
an  affectation,  a  pose  ;  but  she  was  vaguely  con- 
scious that  during  the  present  summer  he  had  been 
a  highly  successful  comedian.  They  had  never 
yet  had  an  explanation ;  she  had  not  known  the 
need  of  one'.  Felix  was  presumably  following  the 
bent  of  his  disinterested  genius,  and  she  felt  that 
she  had  no  advice  to  give  him  that  he  would  un- 
derstand. With  this,  there  was  always  a  certain 
element  of  comfort  about  Felix  —  the  assurance 
that  he  would  not  interfere.  He  was  very  deli- 
cate, this  pure-minded  Felix  ;  in  effect,  he  was  her 
brother,  and  Madame  Miinster  felt  that  there  was 
a  great  propriety,  every  way,  in  that.  It  is  true 
that  Felix  was  delicate ;  he  was  not  fond  of  ex- 
planations with  his  sister ;  this  was  one  of  the  very 
few  things  in  the  world  about  which  he  was  un- 
comfortable. But  now  he  was  not  thinking  of 
anything  uncomfortable. 

"  Dear  brother,"  said  Eugenia  at  last,  "  do  stop 
making  Us  yeux  doux  at  the  rain." 

"  With  pleasure.  I  will  make  them  at  you  !  " 
answered  Felix. 

"  How  much  longer,"  asked  Eugenia,  in  a  mo- 
ment, "  do  you  propose  to  remain  in  this  lovely 
spot?  " 

14 


210  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Felix  stared.  "Do  you  want  to  go  away  —  al- 
ready ?  " 

"  '  Already  '  is  delicious.  I  am  not  so  happy  as 
you." 

Felix  dropped  into  a  chair,  looking  at  the  fire. 
"  The  fact  is  I  am  happy,"  he  said  in  his  light, 
clear  tone. 

"  And  do  you  propose  to  spend  your  life  in 
making  love  to  Gertrude  Wentworth  ?  " 

"  Yes !  "  said  Felix,  smiling  sidewise  at  his 
sister. 

The  Baroness  returned  his  glance,  much  more 
gravely;  and  then,  "  Do  you  like  her?  "  she  asked. 

"  Don't  you  ?  "   Felix  demanded. 

The  Baroness  was  silent  a  moment.  "I  will 
answer  you  in  the  words  of  the  gentleman  who 
was  asked  if  he  liked  music :  4  Je  ne  la  crams 
pas!'" 

"  She  admires  you  immensely,"  said  Felix. 

"  I  don't  care  for  that.  Other  women  should 
not  admire  one." 

"  They  should  dislike  you  ?  " 

Again  Madame  Minister  hesitated.  "  They 
should  hate  me  !  It 's  a  measure  of  the  time  I 
have  been  losing  here  that  they  don't." 

"  No  time  is  lost  in  which  one  has  been  happy  !  " 
said  Felix,  with  a  bright  sententlousness  which 
may  well  have  been  a  little  irritating. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  211 

"  And  in  which,"  rejoined  his  sister,  with  a 
harsher  laugh,  "  one  has  secured  the  affections  of 
a  young  lady  with  a  fortune  !  " 

Felix  explained,  very  candidly  and  seriously. 
"  I  have  secured  Gertrude's  affection,  but  I  am  by 
no  means  sure  that  I  have  secured  her  fortune. 
That  may  come  —  or  it  may  not." 

"  Ah,  well,  it  may  I     That's  the  great  point." 

"  It  depends  upon  her  father.  He  does  n't 
smile  upon  our  union.  You  know  he  wants  her 
to  marry  Mr.  Brand." 

"  I  know  nothing  about  it  !  "  cried  the  Baroness. 
"  Please  to  put  on  a  log."  Felix  complied  with 
her  request  and  sat  watching  the  quickening  of 
the  flame.  Presently  his  sister  added,  "  And  you 
propose  to  elope  with  mademoiselle  ?  " 

"  By  no  means.  I  don't  wish  to  do  anything 
that 's  disagreeable  to  Mr.  Wentworth.  He  has 
been  far  too  kind  to  us." 

44  But  you  must  choose  between  pleasing  your- 
self and  pleasing  him." 

"  I  want  to  please  every  one ! "  exclaimed 
Felix,  joyously.  "  I  have  a  good  conscience.  I 
made  up  my  mind  at  the  outset  that  it  was  not 
my  place  to  make  love  to  Gertrude." 

"  So,  to  simplify  matters,  she  made  love  to 
you!" 

Felix  looked  at  his  sister  with  sudden  gravity. 


212  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"You  say  you  are  not  afraid  of  her,"  he  said. 
"But  perhaps  you  ought  to  be  —  a  little.  She's 
a  very  clever  person." 

"  I  begin  to  see  it ! "  cried  the  Baroness.  Her 
brother,  making  no  rejoinder,  leaned  back  in  his 
chair,  and  there  was  a  long  silence.  At  last,  with 
an  altered  accent,  Madame  Miinster  put  another 
question.  "You  expect,  at  any  rate,  to  marry?  " 

"I  shall  be  greatly  disappointed  if  we  don't." 

"A  disappointment  or  two  will  do  you  good!  " 
the  Baroness  declared.  "  And,  afterwards,  do  you 
mean  to  turn  American  ?  " 

"  It  seems  to  me  I  am  a  very  good  American 
already.  But.  we  shall  go  to  Europe.  Gertrude 
wants  extremely  to  see  the  world." 

"  Ah,  like  me,  when  I  came  here ! "  said  the 
Baroness,  with  a  little  laugh. 

"No,  not  like  you,"  Felix  rejoined,  looking  at 
his  sister  with  a  certain  gentle  seriousness.  While 
he  looked  at  her  she  rose  from  her  chair,  and  he 
also  got  up.  "  Gertrude  is  not  at  all  like  you,"  he 
went  on ;  "  but  in  her  own  way  she  is  almost  as 
clever."  He  paused  a  moment ;  his  soul  was  full 
of  an  agreeable  feeling  and  of  a  lively  disposition 
to  express  it.  His  sister,  to  his  spiritual  vision, 
was  always  like  the  lunar  disk  when  only  a  part  of 
it  is  lighted.  The  shadow  on  this  bright  surface 
seemed  to  him  to  expand  and  to  contract;  but 


THE  EUROPEANS.  213 

whatever  its  proportions,  he  always  appreciated 
the  moonlight.  He  looked  at  the  Baroness,  and 
then  he  kissed  her.  "  I  am  very  much  in  love 
with  Gertrude,"  he  said.  Eugenia  turned  away 
and  walked  about  the.  room,  and  Felix  continued. 
"  She  is  very  interesting,  and  very  different  from 
what  she  seems.  She  has  never  had  a  chance. 
She  is  very  brilliant.  We  will  go  to  Europe  and 
amuse  ourselves." 

The  Baroness  had  gone  to  the  window,  where 
she  stood  looking  out.  The  day  was  drearier  than 
ever ;  the  rain  was  doggedly  falling.  "  Yes,  to 
amuse  yourselves,"  she  said  at  last,  uyou  had  de- 
cidedly better  go  to  Europe  !  "  Then  she  turned 
round,  looking  at  her  brother.  A  chair  stood  near 
her;  she  leaned  her  hands  upon  the  back  of  it. 
"Don't  you  think  it  is  very  good  of  me,"  she 
asked,  "  to  come  all  this  way  with  you  simply  to 
see  you  properly  married  —  if  properly  it  is?" 

"  Oh,  it  will  be  properly !  "  cried  Felix,  with 
light  eagerness. 

The  Baroness  gave  a  little  laugh.  "  You  are 
thinking  only  of  yourself,  and  you  don't  answer 
my  question.  While  you  are  amusing  yourself  — 
with  the  brilliant  Gertrude  —  what  shall  I  be  do- 
ing?" 

"  Vous  serez  de  la  partie !  "  cried  Felix. 

"  Thank  you  :  I  should  spoil  it."    The  Baroness 


214  THE  EUROPEANS. 

dropped  her  eyes  for  some  moments.  "  Do  you 
propose,  however,  to  leave  me  here  ? "  she  in- 
quired. 

Felix  smiled  at  her.  "  My  dearest  sister,  where 
you  are  concerned  I  never  propose.  I  execute 
your  commands." 

"  I  believe,"  said  Eugenia,  slowly,  "  that  you 
are  the  most  heartless  person  living.  Don't  you 
see  that  I  am  in  trouble  ?  " 

"  I  saw  that  you  were  not  cheerful,  and  I  gave 
you  some  good  news." 

"  Well,  let  me  give  you  some  news,"  said  the 
Baroness.  "  You  probably  will  not  have  discov- 
ered it  for  yourself.  Robert  Acton  wants  to  marry 
me." 

"No,  I  had  not  discovered  that.  But  I  quite 
understand  it.  Why  does  it  make  you  unhappy?  " 

"  Because  I  can't  decide." 

"  Accept  him,  accept  him  !  "  cried  Felix,  joy- 
ously. "  He  is  the  best  fellow  in  the  world." 

"  He  is  immensely  in  love  with  me,"  said  the 
Baroness. 

"And  he  has  a  large  fortune.  Permit  me  in 
turn  to  remind  you  of  that." 

"  Oh,  I  am  perfectly  aware  of  it,"  said  Eugenia. 
"  That 's  a  great  item  in  his  favor.  I  am  terribly 
candid."  And  she  left  her  place  and  came  nearer 
her  brother,  looking  at  him  hard.  He  was  turn- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  215 

ing  over  several  things ;  she  was  wondering  in 
what  manner  he  really  understood  her. 

There  were  several  ways  of  understanding  her : 
there  was  what  she  said,  and  there  was  what  she 
meant,  and  there  was  something,  between  the  two, 
that  was  neither.  It  is  probable  that,  in  the  last 
analysis,  what  she  meant  was  that  Felix  should 
spare  her  the  necessity  of  stating  the  case  more 
exactly  and  should  hold  himself  commissioned  to 
assist  her  by  all  honorable  means  to  marry  the 
best  fellow  in  the  world.  But  in  all  this  it  was 
never  discovered  what  Felix  understood. 

"  Once  you  have  your  liberty,  what  are  your 
objections  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Well,  I  don't  particularly  like  him." 

"  Oh,  try  a  little." 

"  I  am  trying  now,"  said  Eugenia.  "  I  should 
succeed  better  if  he  didn't  live  here.  I  could 
never  live  here." 

"  Make  him  go  to  Europe,"  Felix  suggested. 

"  Ah,  there  you  speak  of  happiness  based  upon 
violent  effort,"  the  Baroness  rejoined.  "  That  is 
not  what  I  am  looking  for.  He  would  never  live 
in  Europe." 

"  He  would  live  anywhere,  with  you  !  "  said 
Felix,  gallantly. 

His  sister  looked  at  him  still,  with  a  ray  of  pen- 
etration in  her  charming  eyes;  then  she  turned 


216  THE  EUROPEANS. 

away  again.  "  You  see,  at  all  events,"  she  pres- 
ently went  on,  "  that  if  it  had  been  said  of  me 
that  I  had  come  over  here  to  seek  my  fortune  it 
would  have  to  be  added  that  I  have  found  it !  " 

"  Don't  leave  it  lying ! "  urged  Felix,  with 
smiling  solemnity. 

"  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  interest," 
his  sister  declared,  after  a  moment.  "  But  promise 
me  one  thing  :  pas  de  zele  !  If  Mr.  Acton  should 
ask  you  to  plead  his  cause,  excuse  yourself." 

4t  I  shall  certainly  have  the  excuse,"  said  Felix, 
"  that  I  have  a  cause  of  my  own  to  plead." 

"  If  he  should  talk  of  me  —  favorably,"  Eugenia 
continued,  "  warn  him  against  dangerous  illusions. 
I  detest  importunities ;  I  want  to  decide  at  my  leis- 
ure, with  my  eyes  open." 

"  I  shall  be  discreet,"  said  Felix,  "  except  to  you. 
To  you  I  will  say,  Accept  him  outright." 

She  had  advanced  to  the  open  door-way,  and 
she  stood  looking  at  him.  "  I  will  go  and  dress 
and  think  of  it,"  she  said ;  and  he  heard  her  mov- 
ing slowly  to  her  apartments. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  the  rain  stopped,  and 
just  afterwards  there  was  a  great  flaming,  flick- 
ering, trickling  sunset.  Felix  sat  in  his  painting- 
room  and  did  some  work ;  but  at  last,  as  the 
light,  which  had  not  been  brilliant,  began  to  fade, 
he  laid  down  his  brushes  and  came  out  to  the 


THE  EUROPEANS.  217 

little  piazza  of  the  cottage.  Here  he  walked  up 
and  down  for  some  time,  looking  at  the  splendid 
blaze  of  the  western  sky  and  saying,  as  he  had 
often  said  before,  that  this  was  certainly  the 
country  of  sunsets.  There  was  something  in  these 
glorious  deeps  of  fire  that  quickened  his  imagina- 
tion ;  he  always  found  images  and  promises  in  the 
western  sky.  He  thought  of  a  good  many  things 
—  of  roaming  about  the  world  with  Gertrude 
Wentworth  ;  he  seemed  to  see  their  possible  ad- 
ventures, in  a  glowing  frieze,  between  the  cloud- 
bars;  then  of  what  Eugenia  had  just  been  tell- 
ing him.  He  wished  very  much  that  Madame 
Minister  would  make  a  comfortable  and  honorable 
marriage.  Presently,  as  the  sunset  expanded  and 
deepened,  the  fancy  took  him  of  making  a  note  of 
so  magnificent  a  piece  of  coloring.  He  returned 
to  his  studio  and  fetched  out  a  small  panel,  with 
his  palette  and  brushes,  and,  placing  the  panel 
against  a  window-sill,  he  began  to  daub  with  great 
gusto.  While  he  was  so  occupied  he  saw  Mr. 
Brand,  in  the  distance,  slowly  come  down  from 
Mr.  Wentworth's  house,  nursing  a  large  folded 
umbrella.  He  walked  with  a  joyless,  meditative 
tread,  and  his  eyes  were  bent  upon  the  ground. 
Felix  poised  his  brush  for  a  moment,  watching 
him  ;  then,  by  a  sudden  impulse,  as  he  drew  nearer, 
advanced  to  the  garden-gate  and  signaled  to  him 


218  THE  EUROPEANS. 

—  the  palette  and  bunch  of  brushes  contributing 
to  this  effect. 

Mr.  Brand  stopped  and  started ;  then  he  ap- 
peared to  decide  to  accept  Felix's  invitation.  He 
came  out  of  Mr.  Wentworth's  gate  and  passed 
along  the  road ;  after  which  he  entered  the  little 
garden  of  the  cottage.  Felix  had  gone  back  to 
his  sunset ;  but  he  made  his  visitor  welcome  while 
he  rapidly  brushed  it  in. 

"I  wanted  so  much  to  speak  to  you  that  I 
thought  I  would  call  you,"  he  said,  in  the  friend- 
liest tone.  "  All  the  more  that  you  have  been 
to  see  me  so  little.  You  have  come  to  see  my  sis- 
ter ;  I  know  that.  But  you  have  n't  come  to  see 
me  —  the  celebrated  artist.  Artists  are  very  sen- 
sitive, you  know ;  they  notice  those  things."  And 
Felix  turned  round,  smiling,  with  a  brush  in  his 
mouth. 

Mr.  Brand  stood  there  with  a  certain  blank, 
candid  majesty,  pulling  together  the  large  flaps  of 
his  umbrella.  "  Why  should  I  come  to  see  you  ?  " 
he  asked.  "  I  know  nothing  of  Art." 

"  It  would  sound  very  conceited,  I  suppose," 
said  Felix,  "  if  I  were  to  say  that  it  would  be  a 
good  little  ctiance  for  you  to  learn  something. 
You  would  ask  me  why  you  should  learn ;  and  I 
should  have  no  answer  to  that.  I  suppose  a 
minister  has  no  need  for  Art,  eh  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  219 

"  He  has  need  for  good  temper,  sir,"  said  Mr. 
Brand,  with  decision. 

Felix  jumped  up,  with  his  palette  on  his  thumb 
and  a  movement  of  the  liveliest  deprecation. 
"  That 's  because  I  keep  you  standing  there  while 
I  splash  my  red  paint !  I  beg  a  thousand  pardons  ! 
You  see  what  bad  manners  Art  gives  a  man ;  and 
how  right  you  are  to  let  it  alone.  I  did  n't  mean 
you  should  stand,  either.  The  piazza,  as  you  see, 
is  ornamented  with  rustic  chairs ;  though  indeed  I 
ought  to  warn  you  that  they  have  nails  in  the 
wrong  places.  I  was  just  making  a  note  of  that 
sunset.  I  never  saw  such  a  blaze  of  different  reds. 
It  looks  as  if  the  Celestial  City  were  in  flames, 
eh  ?  If  that  were  really  the  case  I  suppose  it 
would  be  the  business  of  you  theologians  to  put 
out  the  fire.  Fancy  me  —  an  ungodly  artist — 
quietly  sitting  down  to  paint  it !  " 

Mr.  Brand  had  always  credited  Felix  Young 
with  a  certain  impudence,  but  it  appeared  to  him 
that  on  this  occasion  his  impudence  was  so  great 
as  to  make  a  special  explanation  —  or  even  an 
apology  — necessary.  And  the  impression,  it  must 
be  added,  was  sufficiently  natural.  Felix  had  at 
all  times  a  brilliant  assurance  of  manner  which 
was  simply  the  vehicle  of  his  good  spirits  and  his 
good  will  ;  but  at  present  he  had  a  special  design, 
and  as  he  would  have  admitted  that  the  design 


220  THE  EUROPEANS. 

was  audacious,  so  he  was  conscious  of  having  sum- 
moned all  the  arts  of  conversation  to  his  aid.  But 
he  was  so  far  from  desiring  to  offend  his  visitor 
that  he  was  rapidly  asking  himself  what  personal 
compliment  he  could  pay  the  young  clergyman 
that  would  gratify  him  most.  If  he  could  think 
of  it,  he  was  prepared  to  pay  it  down.  "  Have 
you  been  preaching  one  of  your  beautiful  sermons 
to-day?"  he  suddenly  asked,  laying  down  his 
palette.  This  was  not  what  Felix  had  been  try- 
ing to  think  of,  but  it  was  a  tolerable  stop-gap. 

Mr.  Brand  frowned  —  as  much  as  a  man  can 
frown  who  has  very  fair,  soft  eyebrows,  and,  be- 
neath them,  very  gentle,  tranquil  eyes.  "  No,  I 
have  not  preached  any  sermon  to-day.  Did  you 
bring  me  over  here  for  the  purpose  of  making  that 
inquiry  ?  " 

Felix  saw  that  he  was  irritated,  and  he  re- 
gretted it  immensely  ;  but  he  had  no  fear  of  not 
being,  in  the  end,  agreeable  to  Mr.  Brand.  He 
looked  at  him,  smiling  and  laying  his  hand  on  his 
arm.  "  No,  no,  not  for  that  —  not  for  that.  I 
wanted  to  ask  you  something ;  I  wanted  to  tell 
you  something.  I  am  sure  it  will  interest  you 
very  much.  Only  —  as  it  is  something  rather 
private  —  we  had  better  come  into  my  little  stu- 
dio. I  have  a  western  window ;  we  can  still  see 
the  sunset.  Andiamo ! "  And  he  gave  a  little 
pat  to  his  companion's  arm. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  221 

He  led  the  way  in ;  Mr.  Brand  stiffly  and  softly 
followed.  The  twilight  had  thickened  in  the  lit- 
tle studio  ;  but  the  wall  opposite  the  western  win- 
dow was  covered  with  a  deep  pink  flush.  There 
were  a  great  many  sketches  and  half-finished  can- 
vasses suspended  in  this  rosy  glow,  and  the  cor- 
ners of  the  room  were  vague  and  dusky.  Felix 
begged  Mr.  Brand  to  sit  down ;  then  glancing 
round  him,  "By  Jove,  how  pretty  it  looks !  "  he 
cried.  But  Mr.  Brand  would  not  sit  down  ;  he 
went  and  leaned  against  the  window;  he  wondered 
what  Felix  wanted  of  him.  In  the  shadow,  on 
the  darker  parts  of  the  wall,  he  saw  the  gleam  of 
three  or  four  pictures  that  looked  fantastic  and 
surprising.  They  seemed  to  represent  naked  fig- 
ures. Felix  stood  there,  with  his  head  a  little 
bent  and  his  eyes  fixed  upon  his  visitor,  smiling 
intensely,  pulling  his  mustache.  Mr.  Brand  felt 
vaguely  uneasy.  "  It  is  very  delicate  —  what  I 
want  to  say,"  Felix  began.  "But  I  have  been 
thinking  of  it  for  some  time." 

"  Please  to  say  it  as  quickly  as  possible,"  said 
Mr.  Brand. 

"  It 's  because  you  are  a  clergyman,  you  know," 
Felix  went  on.  "  I  don't  think  I  should  venture 
to  say  it  to  a  common  man." 

Mr.  Brand  was  silent  a  moment.  "If  it  is 
a.  question  of  yielding  to  a  weakness,  of  resent- 


222  THE  EUROPEANS. 

ing  an  injury,  I  am  afraid  I  am  a  very  common 
man." 

"My  dearest  friend,1'  cried  Felix,  "this  is  not 
an  injury ;  it 's  a  benefit  —  a  great  service  !  You 
will  like  it  extremely.  Only  it 's  so  delicate !  " 
And,  in  the  dim  light,  he  continued  to  smile  in- 
tensely. "  You  know  I  take  a  great  interest  in 
my  cousins  —  in  Charlotte  and  Gertrude  Went- 
worth.  That 's  very  evident  from  my  having  trav- 
eled some  five  thousand  miles  to  see  them."  Mr. 
Brand  said  nothing  and  Felix  proceeded.  "  Com- 
ing into  their  society  as  a  perfect  stranger  I  re- 
ceived of  course  a  great  many  new  impressions, 
and  my  impressions  had  a  great  freshness,  a  great 
keenness.  Do  you  know  what  I  mean  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  sure  that  I  do;  but  I  should  like  you 
to  continue." 

"I  think  my  impressions  have  always  a  good 
deal  of  freshness,"  said  Mr.  Brand's  entertainer; 
"  but  on  this  occasion  it  was  perhaps  particularly 
natural  that  —  coming  in,  as  I  say,  from  outside 
—  I  should  be  struck  with  things  that  passed  un- 
noticed among  yourselves.  And  then  I  had  my 
sister  to  help  me  ;  and  she  is  simply  the  most  ob- 
servant woman  in  the  world." 

"  I  am  not  surprised,"  said  Mr.  Brand,  "that  in 
our  little  circle  two  intelligent  persons  should  have 
found  food  for  observation.  I  am  sure  that,  of 
late,  I  have  found  it  myself!" 


THE  EUROPEANS.  223 

"  Ah,  but  I  shall  surprise  you  yet !  "  cried  Felix, 
laughing.  "  Both  my  sister  and  I  took  a  great 
fancy  to  my  cousin  Charlotte." 

"  Your  cousin  Charlotte  ?  "  repeated  Mr.  Brand. 

"  We  fell  in  love  with  her  from  the  first ! " 

"  You  fell  in  love  with  Charlotte  ?  "  Mr.  Brand 
murmured. 

"  Dame ! "  exclaimed  Felix,  "  she  's  a  very 
charming  person ;  and  Eugenia  was  especially 
smitten."  Mr.  Brand  stood  staring,  and  he  pur- 
sued, "Affection,  you  know,  opens  one's  eyes,  and 
we  noticed  something.  Charlotte  is  not  happy ! 
Charlotte  is  in  love."  And  Felix,  drawing  nearer, 
laid  his  hand  again  upon  his  companion's  arm. 

There  was  something  akin  to  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  fascination  in  the  way  Mr.  Brand  looked 
at  him ;  but  the  young  clergyman  retained  as  yet 
quite  enough  self-possession  to  be  able  to  say,  with 
a  good  deal  of  solemnity,  "  She  is  not  in  love  with 
you." 

Felix  gave  a  light  laugh,  and  rejoined  with  the 
alacrity  of  a  maritime  adventurer  who  feels  a  puff 
of  wind  in  his  sail.  "  Ah,  no ;  if  she  were  in  love 
with  me  I  should  know  it !  I  am  not  so  blind  as 
you." 

"As  I?" 

"  My  dear  sir,  you  are  stone  blind.  Poor  Char- 
lotte is  dead  in  love  with  you  !  " 


224  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Mr.  Brand  said  nothing  for  a  moment;  he 
breathed  a  little  heavily.  "Is  that  what  you 
wanted  to  say  to  me  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  have  wanted  to  say  it  these  three  weeks. 
Because  of  late  she  has  been  worse.  I  told  you," 
added  Felix,  u  it  was  very  delicate." 

"  Well,  sir  "  —  Mr.  Brand  began  ;  "  well,  sir  "  — 

"  I  was  sure  you  did  n't  know  it,"  Felix  con- 
tinued. "  But  don't  you  see  —  as  soon  as  I  men- 
tion it  —  how  everything  is  explained?"  Mr. 
Brand  answered  nothing;  he  looked  for  a  chair 
and  softly  sat  down.  Felix  could  see  that  he  was 
blushing ;  he  had  looked  straight  at  his  host  hith- 
erto, but  now  he  looked  away.  The  foremost 
effect  of  what  he  had  heard  had  been  a  sort  of 
irritation  of  his  modesty.  "  Of  course,"  said  Fe- 
lix, "I  suggest  nothing;  it  would  be  very  pre- 
sumptuous in  me  to  advise  you.  But  I  think  there 
is  no  doubt  about  the  fact." 

Mr.  Brand  looked  hard  at  the  floor  for  some  mo- 
ments ;  he  was  oppressed  with  a  mixture  of  sensa- 
tions. Felix,  standing  there,  was  very  sure  that 
one  of  them  was  profound  surprise.  The  innocent 
young  man  had  been  completely  unsuspicious  of 
poor  Charlotte's  hidden  flame.  This  gave  Felix 
great  hope ;  he  was  sure  that  Mr.  Brand  would  be 
flattered.  Felix  thought  him  very  transparent, 
and  indeed  he  was  so ;  he  could  neither  simulate 


THE  EUROPEANS.  225 

nor  dissimulate.  "  I  scarcely  know  what  to  make 
of  this,"  he  said  at  last,  without  looking  up ;  and 
Felix  was  struck  with  the  fact  that  he  offered 
no  protest  or  contradiction.  Evidently  Felix  had 
kindled  a  train  of  memories  —  a  retrospective  illu- 
mination. It  was  making,  to  Mr.  Brand's  aston- 
ished eyes,  a  very  pretty  blaze ;  his  second  emotion 
had  been  a  gratification  of  vanity. 

"Thank  me  for  telling  you,"  Felix  rejoined. 
"  It 's  a  good  thing  to  know." 

"  I  am  not  sure  of  that,"  said  Mr.  Brand. 

"  Ah,  don't  let  her  languish  !  "  Felix  murmured, 
lightly  and  softly. 

"  You  do  advise  me,  then  ?  "  And  Mr.  Brand 
looked  up. 

"  I  congratulate  you  !  "  said  Felix,  smiling.  He 
had  thought  at  first  his  visitor  was  simply  appeal- 
ing ;  but  he  saw  he  was  a  little  ironical. 

"  It  is  in  your  interest ;  you  have  interfered 
with  me,"  the  young  clergyman  went  on. 

Felix  still  stood  and  smiled.  -The  little  room 
had  grown  darker,  and  the  crimson  glow  had 
faded ;  but  Mr.  Brand  could  see  the  brilliant  ex- 
pression of  his  face.  "  I  won't  pretend  not  to 
know  what  you  mean,"  said  Felix  at  last.  "  But 
I  have  not  really  interfered  with  you.  Of  what 
you  had  to  lose — with  another  person  —  you  have 
lost  nothing.  And  think  what  you  have  gained  ! " 

15 


226'  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  It  seems  to  me  I  am  the  proper  judge,  on  each 
side,"  Mr.  Brand  declared.  He  got  up,  holding 
the  brim  of  his  hat  against  his  mouth  and  staring 
at  Felix  through  the  dusk. 

"  You  have  lost  an  illusion  ! "  said  Felix. 

"  What  do  you  call  an  illusion  ?  " 

"The  belief  that  you  really  know  —  that  you 
have  ever  really  known  —  Gertrude  Wentworth. 
Depend  upon  that,"  pursued  Felix.  "  I  don't  know 
her  yet ;  but  I  have  no  illusions  ;  I  don't  pretend 
to." 

Mr.  Brand  kept  gazing,  over  his  hat.  "  She 
has  always  been  a  lucid,  limpid  nature,"  he  said, 
solemnly. 

"  She  has  always  been  a  dormant  nature.  She 
was  waiting  for  a  touchstone.  But  now  she  is  be- 
ginning to  awaken." 

"  Don't  praise  her  to  me !  "  said  Mr.  Brand, 
with  a  little  quaver  in  his  voice.  "If  you  have 
the  advantage  of  me  that  is  not  generous." 

"  My  dear  sir,  I  am  melting  with  generosity !  " 
exclaimed  Felix.  "And  I  am  not  praising  my 
cousin.  I  am  simply  attempting  a  scientific  defi- 
nition of  her.  She  does  n't  care  for  abstractions. 
Now  I  think  the  contrary  is  what  you  have  always 
fancied  —  is  the  basis  on  which  you  have  been 
building.  She  is  extremely  preoccupied  with  the 
concrete.  I  care  for  the  concrete,  too.  But  Ger- 
trude is  stronger  than  I ;  she  whirls  me  along !  " 


THJ:  EUROPEANS.  227 

Mr.  Brand  looked  for  a  moment  into  the  crown 
of  his  hat.  "  It 's  a  most  interesting  nature." 

"  So  it  is,"  said  Felix.  "  But  it  pulls  —  it  pulls 
—  like  a  runaway  horse.  Now  I  like  the  feeling 
of  a  runaway  horse;  and  if  I  am  thrown  out  of 
the  vehicle  it  is  no  great  matter.  But  if  you 
should  be  thrown,  Mr.  Brand  "  —  and  Felix  paused 
a  moment  —  "  another  person  also  would  suffer 
from  the  accident." 

"  What  other  person  ?  " 

"  Charlotte  Wentworth  !  " 

Mr.  Brand  looked  at  Felix  for  a  moment  side- 
wise,  mistrustfully ;  then  his  eyes  slowly  wandered 
over  the  ceiling.  Felix  was  sure  he  was  secretly 
struck  with  the  romance  of  the  situation.  "I 
think  this  is  none  of  our  business,"  the  young 
minister  murmured. 

"  None  of  mine,  perhaps  ;  but  surely  yours  !  " 

Mr.  Brand  lingered  still,  looking  at  the  ceiling ; 
there  was  evidently  something  he  wanted  to  say. 
"  What  do  you  mean  by  Miss  Gertrude  being 
strong?"  he  asked  abruptly. 

"Well,"  said  Felix  meditatively,  "  I  mean  that 
she  has  had  a  great  deal  of  self-possession.  She 
was  waiting  —  for  years ;  even  when  she  seemed, 
perhaps,  to  be  living  in  the  present.  She  knew 
how  to  wait ;  she  had  a  purpose.  That 's  what  I 
mean  by  her  being  strong." 


228  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  But  what  do  you  mean  by  her  purpose  ?  " 
"  Well  —  the  purpose  to  see  the  world ! " 
Mr.  Brand  eyed  his  strange  informant  askance 
again;    but  he  said  nothing.     At  last  he  turned 
away,  as  if  to  take  leave.     He  seemed  bewildered, 
however;  for  instead  of  going  to  the  door  he  moved 
toward  the  opposite  corner  of  the  room.     Felix 
stood   and  watched  him  for  a   moment  —  almost 
groping  about  in  the  dusk ;  then  he  led  him  to  the 
door,  with  a  tender,  almost  fraternal  movement. 
"Is  that  all  you  have  to  say?  "  asked  Mr.  Brand. 
"  Yes,  it 's  all  —  but  it  will  bear  a  good  deal  of 
thinking  of." 

Felix  went  with  him  to  the  garden-gate,  and 
watched  him  slowly  walk  away  into  the  thicken- 
ing twilight  with  a  relaxed  rigidity  that  tried  to 
rectify  itself.  "  He  is  offended,  excited,  bewil- 
dered, perplexed  —  and  enchanted !  "  Felix  said 
to  himself.  "  That 's  a  capital  mixture." 


XI. 

SINCE  that  visit  paid  by  the  Baroness  Miinster 
to  Mrs.  Acton,  of  which  some  account  was  given 
at  an  earlier  stage  of  this  narrative,  the  intercourse 
between  these  two  ladies  had  been  neither  fre- 
quent nor  intimate.  It  was  not  that  Mrs.  Ac- 
ton had  failed  to  appreciate  Madame  Minister's 
charms;  on  the  contrary,  her  perception  of  the 
graces  of  manner  and  conversation  of  her  brilliant 
visitor  had  been  only  too  acute.  Mrs.  Acton  was, 
as  they  said  in  Boston,  very  "intense,"  and  her 
impressions  were  apt  to  be  too  many  for  her.  The 
state  of  her  health  required  the  restriction  of  emo- 
tion ;  and  this  is  why,  receiving,  as  she  sat  in 
her  eternal  arm-chair,  very  few  visitors,  even  of 
the  soberest  local  type,  she  had  been  obliged  to 
limit  the  number  of  her  interviews  with  a  lady 
whose  costume  and  manner  recalled  to  her  imag- 
ination —  Mrs.  Acton's  imagination  was  a  mar- 
vel —  all  that  she  had  ever  read  of  the  most 
stirring  historical  periods.  But  she  had  sent  the 
Baroness  a  great  many  quaintly- worded  messages 
and  a  great  many  nosegays  from  her  garden  and 


230  THE  EUROPEANS. 

baskets  of  beautiful  fruit.  Felix  had  eaten  the 
fruit,  and  the  Baroness  had  arranged  the  flowers 
and  returned  the  baskets  and  the  messages.  On 
the  day  that  followed  that  rainy  Sunday  of  which 
mention  has  been  made,  Eugenia  determined 
to  go  and  pay  the  beneficent  invalid  a  "  visite 
d'adieux  ;  "  so  it  was  that,  to  herself,  she  qualified 
her  enterprise.  It  may  be  noted  that  neither  on 
the  Sunday  evening  nor  on  the  Monday  morning 
had  she  received  that  expected  visit  from  Robert 
Acton.  To  his  own  consciousness,  evidently  he  was 
"  keeping  away  ;  "  and  as  the  Baroness,  on  her 
side,  was  keeping  away  from  her  uncle's,  whither, 
for  several  days,  Felix  had  been  the  unembarrassed 
bearer  of  apologies  and  regrets  for  absence,  chance 
had  not  taken  the  cards  from  the  hands  of  design. 
Mr.  Wentworth  and  his  daughters  had  respected 
Eugenia's  seclusion ;  certain  intervals  of  mysteri- 
ous retirement  appeared  to  them,  vaguely,  a  natural 
part  of  the  graceful,  rhythmic  movement  of  so  re- 
markable a  life.  Gertrude  especially  held  these 
periods  in  honor;  she  wondered  what  Madame 
Miinster  did  at  such  times,  but  she  would  not 
have  permitted  herself  to  inquire  too  curiously. 

The  long  rain  had  freshened  the  air,  and  twelve 
hours'  brilliant  sunshine  had  dried  the  roads ;  so 
that  the  Baroness,  in  the  late  afternoon,  propos- 
ing to  walk  to  Mrs.  Acton's,  exposed  herself  to 


THE  EUROPEANS.  231 

no  great  discomfort.  As  with  her  charming  un- 
dulating step  she  moved  along  the  clean,  grassy 
margin  of  the  road,  beneath  the  thickly-hanging 
boughs  of  the  orchards,  through  the  quiet  of  the 
hour  and  place  and  the  rich  maturity  of  the  sum- 
mer, she  was  even  conscious  of  a  sort  of  luxurious 
melancholy.  The  Baroness  had  the  amiable  weak- 
ness of  attaching  herself  to  places  —  even  when  she 
had  begun  with  a  little  aversion;  and  now,  with 
the  prospect  of  departure,  she  felt  tenderly  toward 
this  well-wooded  corner  of  the  Western  world, 
where  the  sunsets  were  so  beautiful  and  one's 
ambitions  were  so  pure.  Mrs.  Acton  was  able  to 
receive  her ;  but  on  entering  this  lady's  large, 
freshly-scented  room  the  Baroness  saw  that  she 
was  looking  very  ill.  She  was  wonderfully  white 
and  transparent,  and,  in  her  flowered  arm-chair, 
she  made  no  attempt  to  move.  But  she  flushed 
a  little  —  like  a  young  girl,  the  Baroness  thought 
—  and  she  rested  her  clear,  smiling  eyes  upon 
those  of  her  visitor.  Her  voice  was  low  and  mo- 
notonous, like  a  voice  that  had  never  expressed 
any  human  passions. 

"  I  have  come  to  bid  you  good-by,"  said  Eu- 
genia. "  I  shall  soon  be  going  away." 

"  When  are  you  going  away  ?  " 

"  Very  soon  —  any  day." 

"  I  am  very  sorry,"  said  Mrs.  Acton.  "  I  hoped 
you  would  stay  —  always." 


232  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Always  ?  "  Eugenia  demanded. 

"  Well,  I  mean  a  long  time,"  said  Mrs.  Acton, 
in  her  sweet,  feeble  tone.  "  They  tell  me  you 
are  so  comfortable  —  that  you  have  got  such  a 
beautiful  little  house." 

Eugenia  stared  —  that  is,  she  smiled  ;  she 
thought  of  her  poor  little  chalet  and  she  wondered 
whether  her  hostess  were  jesting.  "  Yes,  my  house 
is  exquisite,"  she  said;  "though  not  to  be  com- 
pared to  yours." 

"  And  my  son  is  so  fond  of  going  to  see  you," 
Mrs.  Acton  added.  "  I  am  afraid  my  son  will 
miss  you." 

"  Ah,  dear  madame,"  said  Eugenia,  with  a  little 
laugh,  "  I  can't  stay  in  America  for  your  son !  " 

"  Don't  you  like  America  ?  " 

The  Baroness  looked  at  the  front  of  her  dress. 
"  If  I  liked  it  —  that  would  not  be  staying  for 
your  son!  " 

Mrs.  Acton  gazed  at  her  with  her  grave,  tender 
eyes,  as  if  she  had  not  quite  understood.  The 
Baroness  at  last  found  something  irritating  in  the 
sweet,  soft  stare  of  her  hostess ;  and  if  one  were 
not  bound  to  be  merciful  to  great  invalids  she 
would  almost  have  taken  the  liberty  of  pronounc- 
ing her,  mentally,  a  fool.  "  I  am  afraid,  then, 
I  shall  never  see  you  again,"  said  Mrs.  Acton. 
u  You  know  I  am  dying." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  233 

"Ah,  dear  madame,"  murmured  Eugenia. 

"I  want  to  leave  my  children  cheerful  and 
happy.  My  daughter  will  probably  marry  her 
cousin." 

"  Two  such  interesting  young  people,"  said  the 
Baroness,  vaguely.  She  was  not  thinking  of  Clif- 
ford Wentworth. 

"  I  feel  so  tranquil  about  my  end,"  Mrs.  Acton 
went  on.  "  It  is  coining  so  easily,  so  surely." 
And  she  paused,  with  her  mild  gaze  always  on 
Eugenia's. 

The  Baroness  hated  to  be  reminded  of  death ; 
but  even  in  its  imminence,  so  far  as  Mrs.  Acton 
was  concerned,  she  preserved  her  good  manners. 
"  Ah,  madame,  you  are  too  charming  an  invalid," 
she  rejoined. 

But  the  delicacy  of  this  rejoinder  was  appar- 
ently lost  upon  her  hostess,  who  went  on  in  her 
low,  reasonable  voice.  "  I  want  to  leave  my  chil- 
dren bright  and  comfortable.  You  seem  to  me  all 
so  happy  here  —  just  as  you  are.  So  I  wish  you 
could  stay.  It  would  be  so  pleasant  for  Robert." 

Eugenia  wondered  what  she  meant  by  its  being 
pleasant  for  Robert ;  but  she  felt  that  she  would 
never  know  what  such  a  woman  as  that  meant. 
She  got  up  ;  she  was  afraid  Mrs.  Acton  would  tell 
her  again  that  she  was  dying.  "  Good-by,  dear 
madame,"  she  said.  "  I  must  remember  that  your 
strength  is  precious." 


234  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Mrs.  Acton  took  her  hand  and  held  it  a  mo- 
ment. "Well,  you  have  been  happy  here,  haven't 
you  ?  And  you  like  us  all,  don't  you  ?  I  wish 
you  would  stay,"  she  added,  "  in  your  beautiful 
little  house." 

She  had  told  Eugenia  that  her  waiting- woman 
would  be  in  the  hall,  to  show  her  down-stairs  ; 
but  the  large  landing  outside  her  door  was  empty, 
and  Eugenia  stood  there  looking  about.  She  felt 
irritated ;  the  dying  lady  had  not  "  la  main  lieu- 
reuse"  She  passed  slowly  down-stairs,  still  look- 
ing about.  The  broad  staircase  made  a  great 
bend,  and  in  the  angle  was  a  high  window,  look- 
ing westward,  with  a  deep  bench,  covered  with 
a  row  of  flowering  plants  in  curious  old  pots  of 
blue  china-ware.  The  yellow  afternoon  light  came 
in  through  the  flowers  and  flickered  a  little  on 
the  white  wainscots.  Eugenia  paused  a  moment ; 
the  house  was  perfectly  still,  save  for  the  ticking, 
somewhere,  of  a  great  clock.  The  lower  hall 
stretched  away  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  half  cov- 
ered over  with  a  large  Oriental  rug.  Eugenia 
lingered  a  little,  noticing  a  great  many  things. 
"  Comme  c'est  bien  !  "  she  said  to  herself ;  such  a 
large,  solid,  irreproachable  basis  of  existence  the 
place  seemed  to  her  to  indicate.  And  then  she 
reflected  that  Mrs.  Acton  was  soon  to  withdraw 
from  it.  The  reflection  accompanied  her  the  rest 


THE  EUROPEANS.  235 

of  the  way  down-stairs,  where  she  paused  again, 
making  more  observations.  The  hall  was  ex- 
tremely broad,  and  on  either  side  of  the  front  door 
was  a  wide,  deeply-set  window,  which  threw  the 
shadows  of  everything  back  into  the  house.  There 
were  high-backed  chairs  along  the  wall  and  big 
Eastern  vases  upon  tables,  and,  on  either  side,  a 
large  cabinet  with  a  glass  front  and  little  curiosi- 
ties within,  dimly  gleaming.  The  doors  were  open 
—  into  the  darkened  parlor,  the  library,  the  din- 
ing-room. All  these  rooms  seemed  empty.  Eu- 
genia passed  along,  and  stopped  a  moment  on  the 
threshold  of  each.  "  Comme  c'est  bien  ! "  she 
murmured  again  ;  she  had  thought  of  just  such  a 
house  as  this  when  she  decided  to  come  to  America. 
She  opened  the  front  door  for  herself — her  light 
tread  had  summoned  none  of  the  servants  —  and 
on  the  threshold  she  gave  a  last  look.  Outside, 
she  was  still  in  the  humor  for  curious  contempla- 
tion ;  so  instead  of  going  directly  down  the  little 
drive,  to  the  gate,  she  wandered  away  towards 
the  garden,  which  lay  to  the  right  of  the  house. 
She  had  not  gone  many  yards  over  the  grass  be- 
fore she  paused  quickly ;  she  perceived  a  gentleman 
stretched  upon  the  level  verdure,  beneath  a  tree. 
He  had  not  heard  her  coming,  and  he  lay  motion- 
less, flat  on  his  back,  with  his  hands  clasped  un- 
der his  head,  staring  up  at  the  sky  ;  so  that  the 


236  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Baroness  was  able  to  reflect,  at  her  leisure,  upon 
the  question  of  his  identity.  It  was  that  of  a  per- 
son who  had  lately  been  much  in  her  thoughts ; 
but  her  first  impulse,  nevertheless,  was  to  turn 
away ;  the  last  thing  she  desired  was  to  have  the 
air  of  coming  in  quest  of  Robert  Acton.  The  gen- 
tleman on  the  grass,  however,  gave  her  no  time  to 
decide ;  he  could  not  long  remain  unconscious  of  so 
agreeable  a  presence.  He  rolled  back  his  eyes, 
stared,  gave  an  exclamation,  and  then  jumped  up. 
He  stood  an  instant,  looking  at  her. 

"  Excuse  my  ridiculous  position,"  he  said. 

"  I  have  just  now  no  sense  of  the  ridiculous. 
But,  in  case  you  have,  don't  imagine  I  came  to  see 
you." 

"  Take  care,"  rejoined  Acton,  "how  you  put  it 
into  my  head  !  I  was  thinking  of  you." 

"  The  occupation  of  extreme  leisure  !  "  said  the 
Baroness.  "  To  think  of  a  woman  when  you  are 
in  that  position  is  no  compliment." 

"  I  did  n't  say  I  was  thinking  well !  "  Acton  af- 
firmed, smiling. 

She  looked  at  him,  and  then  she  turned  away. 
"  Though  I  didn't  come  to  see  you,"  she  said,  "re- 
member at  least  that  I  am  within  your  gates." 

"  I  am  delighted  —  I  am  honored  !  Won't  you 
come  into  the  house  ?  " 

"  I  have  just  come  out  of  it.     I  have  been  call- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  237 

ing  upon  your  mother.  I  have  been  bidding  her 
farewell." 

"  Farewell  ?  "  Acton  demanded. 

"  I  am  going  away,"  said  the  Baroness.  And 
she  turned  away  again,  as  if  to  illustrate  her  mean- 
ing. 

"When  are  you  going?"  asked  Acton,  standing 
a  moment  in  his  place.  But  the  Baroness  made 
no  answer,  and  he  followed  her. 

"  I  came  this  way  to  look  at  your  garden,"  she 
said,  walking  back  to  the  gate,  over  the  grass, 
u  But  I  must  go." 

"  Let  me  at  least  go  with  you."  He  went  with 
her,  and  they  said  nothing  till  they  reached  the 
gate.  It  was  open,  and  they  looked  down  the 
road  which  was  darkened  over  with  long  bosky 
shadows.  "  Must  you  go  straight  home  ?  "  Acton 
asked. 

But  she  made  no  answer.  She  said,  after  a  mo- 
ment, "  Why  have  you  not  been  to  see  me  ? " 
He  said  nothing,  and  then  she  went  on,  "  Why 
don't  you  answer  me  ?  " 

"  I  am  trying  to  invent  an  answer,"  Acton  con- 
fessed. 

"  Have  you  none  ready  ?  " 

"  None  that  I  can  tell  you,"  he  said.  "  But  let 
me  walk  with  you  now." 

"  You  may  do  as  you  like." 


238  THE  EUROPEANS. 

She  moved  slowly  along  the  road,  and  Acton 
went  with  her.  Presently  he  said,  "  If  I  had  done 
as  I  liked  I  would  have  corne  to  see  you  several 
times." 

"  Is  that  invented  ?  "  asked  Eugenia. 

"  No,  that  is  natural.    I  stayed  away  because  " — 

"  Ah,  here  comes  the  reason,  then  !  " 

"  Because  I  wanted  to  think  about  you." 

"  Because  you  wanted  to  lie  down  ! "  said  the 
Baroness.  "  I  have  seen  you  lie  down  —  almost 
—  in  my  drawing-room." 

Acton  stopped  in  the  road,  with  a  movement 
which  seemed  to  beg  her  to  linger  a  little.  She 
paused,  and  he  looked  at  her  awhile ;  he  thought 
her  very  charming.  "  You  are  jesting,"  he  said  ; 
"but  if  you  are  really  going  away  it  is  very 
serious." 

"  If  I  stay,"  and  she  gave  a  little  laugh,  "  it  is 
more  serious  still !  " 

"  When  shall  you  go  ?  " 

"  As  soon  as  possible." 

"  And  why  ?  " 

"  Why  should  I  stay  ?  " 

"  Because  we  all  admire  you  so." 

"  That  is  not  a  reason.  I  am  admired  also  in 
Europe."  And  she  began  to  walk  homeward 
again. 

"  What  could  I  say  to  keep  you  ?  "  asked  Acton. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  239 

He  wanted  to  keep  her,  and  it  was  a  fact  that  he 
had  been  thinking  of  her  for  a  week.  He  was  in 
love  with  her  now ;  he  was  conscious  of  that,  or 
lie  thought  he  was;  and  the  only  question  with 
him  was  whether  he  could  trust  her. 

"  What  you  can  say  to  keep  me?  "  she  repeated. 
•'As  I  want  very  much  to  go  it  is  not  in  my  in- 
terest to  tell  you.  Besides,  I  can't  imagine." 

He  went  on  with  her  in  silence ;  he  was  much 
more  affected  by  what  she  had  told  him  than  ap- 
peared. Ever  since  that  evening  of  his  return 
from  Newport  her  image  had  had  a  terrible  power 
to  trouble  him.  What  Clifford  Wentworth  had 
told  him  —  that  had  affected  him,  too,  in  an  ad- 
verse sense  ;  but  it  had  not  liberated  him  from 
the  discomfort  of  a  charm  of  which  his  intelligence 
was  impatient.  "  She  is  not  honest,  she  is  not 
honest,"  he  kept  murmuring  to  himself.  That  is 
what  he  had  been  saying  to  the  summer  sky,  ten 
minutes  before.  Unfortunately,  he  was  unable  to 
say  it  finally,  definitively ;  and  now  that  he  was 
near  her  it  seemed  to  matter  wonderfully  little. 
"  She  is  a  woman  who  will  lie,"  he  had  said  to 
himself.  Now,  as  he  went  along,  he  reminded 
himself  of  this  observation  ;  but  it  failed  to  frighten 
him  as  it  had  done  before.  He  almost  wished  he 
could  make  her  lie  and  then  convict  her  of  it,  so 
that  he  might  see  how  he  should  like  that.  He 


240  THE  EUROPEANS. 

kept  thinking  of  this  as  he  walked  by  her  side, 
while  she  moved  forward  with  her  light,  grace- 
ful dignity.  He  had  sat  with  her  before  ;  he  had 
driven  with  her;  but  he  had  never  walked  with 
her. 

"  By  Jove,  how  comme  il  faut  she  is  !  "  he  said, 
as  he  observed  her  sidewise.  When  they  reached 
the  cottage  in  the  orchard  she  passed  into  the  gate 
without  asking  him  to  follow ;  but  she  turned 
round,  as  he  stood  there,  to  bid  him  good-night. 

"  I  asked  you  a  question  the  other  night  which 
you  never  answered,"  he  said.  "  Have  you  sent 
off  that  document  —  liberating  yourself  ?  " 

She  hesitated  for  a  single  moment  —  very  nat- 
urally. Then,  "  Yes,"  she  said,  simply. 

He  turned  away ;  he  wondered  whether  that 
would  do  for  his  lie.  But  he  saw  her  again  that 
evening,  for  the  Baroness  reappeared  at  her  un- 
cle's. He  had  little  talk  with  her,  however ;  two 
gentlemen  had  driven  out  from  Boston,  in  a  buggy, 
to  call  upon  Mr.  Wentworth  and  his  daughters, 
and  Madame  Minister  was  an  object  of  absorbing 
interest  to  both  of  the  visitors.  One  of  them,  in- 
deed, said  nothing  to  her ;  he  only  sat  and  watched 
with  intense  gravity,  and  leaned  forward  solemnly, 
presenting  his  ear  (a  very  large  one),  as  if  he 
were  deaf,  whenever  she  dropped  an  observation. 
He  had  evidently  been  impressed  with  the  idea  of 


THE  EUROPEANS.  241 

her  misfortunes  and  reverses:  he  never  smiled. 
His  companion  adopted  a  lighter,  easier  style  ;  sat 
as  near  as  possible  to  Madame  Minister;  at- 
tempted to  draw  her  out,  and  proposed  every  few 
moments  a  new  topic  of  conversation.  Eugenia 
was  less  vividly  responsive  than  usual  and  had  less 
to  say  than,  from  her  brilliant  reputation,  her  in- 
terlocutor expected,  upon  the  relative  merits  of 
European  and  American  institutions  ;  but  she  was 
inaccessible  to  Robert  Acton,  who  roamed  about 
the  piazza  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  listening 
for  the  grating  sound  of  the  buggy  from  Boston, 
as  it  should  be  brought  round  to  the  side-door. 
But  he  listened  in  vain,  and  at  last  he  lost  pa- 
tience. His  sister  came  to  him  and  begged  him  to 
take  her  home,  and  he  presently  went  off  with  her. 
Eugenia  observed  him  leaving  the  house  with  Liz- 
zie ;  in  her  present  mood  the  fact  seemed  a  contri- 
bution to  her  irritated  conviction  that  he  had  sev- 
eral precious  qualities.  "Even  that  mal-elev6e  little 
girl,"  she  reflected, "  makes  him  do  what  she  wishes." 
.  She  had  been  sitting  just  within  one  of  the  long 
windows  that  opened  upon  the  piazza;  but  very 
soon  after  Acton  had  gone  away  she  got  up  ab- 
ruptly, just  when  the  talkative  gentleman  from 
Boston  was  asking  her  what  she  thought  of  the 
"  moral  tone "  of  that  city.  On  the  piazza  she 
encountered  Clifford  Wentworth,  coming  round 

16 


242  TEE  EUROPEANS. 

from  the  other  side  of  the  house.  She  stopped 
him ;  she  told  him  she  wished  to  speak  to  him. 

"  Why  did  n't  you  go  home  with  your  cousin  ?  " 
she  asked. 

Clifford  stared.  "  Why,  Robert  has  taken  her," 
he  said. 

"  Exactly  so.  But  you  don't  usually  leave  that 
to  him." 

"  Oh,"  said  Clifford,  "  I  want  to  see  those  fel- 
lows start  off.  They  don't  know  how  to  drive." 

"  It  is  not,  then,  that  you  have  quarreled  with 
your  cousin  ?  " 

Clifford  reflected  a  moment,  and  then  with  a 
simplicity  which  had,  for  the  Baroness,  a  singu- 
larly baffling  quality,  "  Oh,  no ;  we  have  made 
up  !  "  he  said. 

She  looked  at  him  for  some  moments ;  but 
Clifford  had  begun  to  be  afraid  of  the  Baroness's 
looks,  and  he  endeavored,  now,  to  shift  himself 
out  of  their  range.  "  Why  do  you  never  come  to 
see  me  any  more  ? "  she  asked.  "  Have  I  dis- 
pleased you  ?  " 

"  Displeased  me  ?  Well,  I  guess  not !  "  said 
Clifford,  with  a  laugh. 

"  Why  have  n't  you  come,  then  ?  " 

"  Well,  because  I  am  afraid  of  getting  shut  up 
in  that  back  room." 

Eugenia  kept  looking  at  him.  "  I  should  think 
you  would  like  that." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  243 

"  Like  it !  "  cried  Clifford. 

"  I  should,  if  I  were  a  young  man  calling  upon 
a  charming  woman." 

"A  charming  woman  isn't  much  use  to  me 
when  I  am  shut  up  in  that  back  room !  " 

"  I  am  afraid  I  am  not  of  much  use  to  you  any- 
where !  "  said  Madame  Miinster.  "  And  yet  you 
know  how  I  have  offered  to  be." 

"  Well,"  observed  Clifford,  by  way  of  response, 
"  there  comes  the  buggy." 

"  Never  mind  the  buggy.  Do  you  know  I  am 
going  away  ?  " 

"  Do  you  mean  now  ?  " 

"I  mean  in  a  few  days.     I  leave  this  place." 

"  You  are  going  back  to  Europe  ?  " 

"To  Europe,  where  you  are  to  come  and  see 
me." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  '11  come  out  there,"  said  Clifford. 

"  But  before  that,"  Eugenia  declared,  "  you 
must  come  and  see  me  here." 

"  Well,  I  shall  keep  clear  of  that  back  room  !  " 
rejoined  her  simple  young  kinsman. 

The  Baroness  was  silent  a  moment.  "  Yes, 
you  must  come  frankly  —  boldly.  That  will  be 
very  much  better.  I  see  that  now." 

"  I  see  it ! "  said  Clifford.  And  then,  in  an 
instant,  "  What 's  the  matter  with  that  buggy  ?  " 
His  practiced  ear  had  apparently  detected  an  un- 


244  THE  EUROPEANS. 

natural  creak  in  the  wheels  of  the  light  vehicle 
which  had  been  brought  to  the  portico,  and  he 
hurried  away  to  investigate  so  grave  an  anomaly. 

The  Baroness  walked  homeward,  alone,  in  the 
starlight,  asking  herself  a  question.  Was  she  to 
have  gained  nothing —  was  she  to  have  gained 
nothing  ? 

Gertrude  Wentworth  had  held  a  silent  place  in 
the  little  circle  gathered  about  the  two  gentlemen 
from  Boston.  She  was  not  interested  in  the  visit- 
ors; she  was  watching  Madame  Miinster,  as  she 
constantly  watched  her.  She  knew  that  Eugenia 
also  was  not  interested  —  that  she  was  bored  ;  and 
Gertrude  was  absorbed  in  study  of  the  problem 
how,  in  spite  of  her  indifference  and  her  absent 
attention,  she  managed  to  have  such  a  charming 
manner.  That  was  the  manner  Gertrude  would 
have  liked  to  have ;  she  determined  to  cultivate  it, 
and  she  wished  that  —  to  give  her  the  charm  — 
she  might  in  future  very  often  be  bored.  While 
she  was  engaged  in  these  researches,  Felix  Young 
was  looking  for  Charlotte,  to  whom  he  had  some- 
thing to  say.  For  some  time,  now,  he  had  had 
something  to  say  to  Charlotte,  and  this  evening 
his  sense  of  the  propriety  of  holding  some  special 
conversation  with  her  had  reached  the  motive- 
point —  resolved  itself  into  acute  and  delightful 
desire.  He  wandered  through  the  empty  rooms  on 


THE  EUROPEANS.  245 

the  large  ground-floor  of  the  house,  and  found  her 
at  last  in  a  small  apartment  denominated,  for  rea- 
sons not  immediately  apparent,  Mr.  Wentworth's 
"  office :  "  an  extremely  neat  and  well-dusted  room, 
with  an  array  of  law-books,  in  time-darkened 
sheep-skin,  on  one  of  the  walls  ;  a  large  map  of 
the  United  States  on  the  other,  flanked  on  either 
side  by  an  old  steel  engraving  of  one  of  Raphael's 
Madonnas;  and  on  the  third  several  glass  cases 
containing  specimens  of  butterflies  and  beetles. 
Charlotte  was  sitting  by  a  lamp,  embroidering  a 
slipper.  Felix  did  not  ask  for  whom  the  slipper 
was  destined ;  he  saw  it  was  very  large. 

He  moved  a  chair  toward  her  and  sat  down, 
smiling  as  usual,  but,  at  first,  not  speaking.  She 
watched  him,  with  her  needle  poised,  and  with  a 
certain  shy,  fluttered  look  which  she  always  wore 
when  he  approached  her.  There  was  something 
in  Felix's  manner  that  quickened  her  modesty, 
her  self-consciousness ;  if  absolute  choice  had  been 
given  her  she  would  have  preferred  never  to  find 
herself  alone  with  him  ;  and  in  fact,  though  she 
thought  him  a  most  brilliant,  distinguished,  and 
well-meaning  person,  she  had  exercised  a  much 
larger  amount  of  tremulous  tact  than  he  had  ever 
suspected,  to  circumvent  the  accident  of  t$te-d-tete. 
Poor  Charlotte  could  have  given  no  account  of  the 
matter  that  would  not  have  seemed  unjust  both  to 


246  THE  EUROPEANS. 

herself  and  to  her  foreign  kinsman ;  she  could  only 
have  said — or  rather,  she  would  never  have  said 
it — that  she  did  not  like  so  much  gentleman's  so- 
ciety at  once.  She  was  not  reassured,  accordingly, 
when  he  began,  emphasizing  his  words  with  a  kind 
of  admiring  radiance,  "  My  dear  cousin,  I  am  en- 
chanted at  finding  you  alone." 

"  I  am  very  often  alone,"  Charlotte  observed. 
Then  she  quickly  added,  "  I  don't  mean  I  am 
lonely !  " 

"  So  clever  a  woman  as  you  is  never  lonely," 
said  Felix.  "You  have  company  in  your  beauti- 
ful work."  And  he  glanced  at  the  big  slipper. 

"  I  like  to  work,"  declared  Charlotte,  simply. 

"  So  do  I !  "  said  her  companion.  "And  I  like 
to  idle  too.  But  it  is  not  to  idle  that  I  have  come 
in  search  of  you.  I  want  to  tell  you  something 
very  particular." 

"  Well,"  murmured  Charlotte  ;  "  of  course,  if 
you  must "  — 

"  My  dear  cousin,"  said  Felix,  "  it 's  nothing 
that  a  young  lady  may  not  listen  to.  At  least  I 
suppose  it  isn't.  But  voyons ;  you  shall  judge. 
I  am  terribly  in  love." 

"  Well,  Felix,"  began  Miss  Wentworth,  gravely. 
But  her  very  gravity  appeared  to  check  the  de- 
velopment of  her  phrase. 

"I  am  in  love  with  your  sister;  but   in   love, 


THE  EUROPEANS.  247 

Charlotte  —  in  love !  "  the  young  man  pursued. 
Charlotte  had  laid  her  work  in  her  lap ;  her  hands 
were  tightly  folded  on  top  of  it ;  she  was  staring 
at  the  carpet.  "  In  short,  I'm  in  love,  dear  lady," 
said  Felix.  "  Now  I  want  you  to  help  me." 

"To  help  you?"  asked  Charlotte,  with  a 
tremor. 

"I  don't  mean  with  Gertrude;  she  and  I  have 
a  perfect  understanding ;  and  oh,  how  well  she  un- 
derstands one  !  I  mean  with  your  father  and  with 
the  world  in  general,  including  Mr.  Brand." 

"Poor  Mr.  Brand!"  said  Charlotte,  slowly,  but 
with  a  simplicity  which  made  it  evident  to  Felix 
that  the  young  minister  had  not  repeated  to  Miss 
Wentworth  the  talk  that  had  lately  occurred  be- 
tween them. 

"  Ah,  now,  don't  say  '  poor '  Mr.  Brand !  I 
don't  pity  Mr.  Brand  at  all.  But  I  pity  your 
father  a  little,  and  I  don't  want  to  displease  him. 
Therefore,  you  see,  I  want  you  to  plead  for  me. 
You  don't  think  me  very  shabby,  eh  ?  " 

"Shabby?"  exclaimed  Charlotte  softly,  for 
whom  Felix  represented  the  most  polished  and 
iridescent  qualities  of  mankind. 

"  I  don't  mean  in  my  appearance,"  rejoined 
Felix,  laughing;  for  Charlotte  was  looking  at  his 
boots.  "  I  mean  in  my  conduct.  You  don't  think 
it 's  an  abuse  of  hospitality  ?  " 


248  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  To  —  to  care  for  Gertrude  ?  "  asked  Char- 
lotte. 

"  To  have  really  expressed  one's  self.  Because 
I  have  expressed  myself,  Charlotte;  I  must  tell 
you  the  whole  truth  —  I  have  !  Of  course  I  want 
to  marry  her  —  and  here  is  the  difficulty.  I  held 
off  as  long  as  I  could ;  but  she  is  such  a  terribly 
fascinating  person !  She 's  a  strange  creature, 
Charlotte  ;  I  don't  believe  you  really  know  her." 
Charlotte  took  up  her  tapestry  again,  and  again 
she  laid  it  down.  "  I  know  your  father  has  had 
higher  views,"  Felix  continued ;  "  and  I  think  you 
have  shared  them.  You  have  wanted  to  marry 
her  to  Mr.  Brand." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Charlotte,  very  earnestly.  "  Mr. 
Brand  has  always  admired  her.  But  we  did  not 
want  anything  of  that  kind." 

Felix  stared.  "  Surely,  marriage  was  what  you 
proposed." 

"  Yes  ;  but  we  did  n't  wish  to  force  her." 

"  A  la  bonne  heure  !  That 's  very  unsafe  you 
know.  With  these  arranged  marriages  there  is 
often  the  deuce  to  pay." 

"  Oh,  Felix,"  said  Charlotte,  "we  didn't  want 
to  c  arrange.' " 

"  I  am  delighted  to  hear  that.  Because  in  such 
cases  —  even  when  the  woman  is  a  thoroughly 
good  creature  —  she  can't  help  looking  for  a  com- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  249 

pensation.  A  charming  fellow  comes  along — 
and  voild  !  "  Charlotte  sat  mutely  staring  at  the 
floor,  and  Felix  presently  added,  "  Do  go  on  with 
your  slipper,  I  like  to  see  you  work." 

Charlotte  took  up  her  variegated  canvas,  and 
began  to  draw  vague  blue  stitches  in  a  big  round 
rose.  "  If  Gertrude  is  so — so  strange,"  she  said, 
"  why  do  you  want  to  marry  her  ?  " 

"  Ah,  that 's  it,  dear  Charlotte  !  I  like  strange 
women  ;  I  always  have  liked  them.  Ask  Eugenia ! 
And  Gertrude  is  wonderful ;  she  says  the  most 
beautiful  things !  " 

Charlotte  looked  at  him,  almost  for  the  first 
time,  as  if  her  meaning  required  to  be  severe- 
ly  pointed.  "  You  have  a  great  influence  over 
her." 

"  Yes  —  and  no !  "  said  Felix.  "  I  had  at  first, 
I  think  ;  but  now  it  is  six  of  one  and  half-a-dozen 
of  the  other;  it  is  reciprocal.  She  affects  me 
strongly — for  she  is  so  strong.  I  don't  believe 
you  know  her  ;  it  's  a  beautiful  nature." 

"  Oh,  yes,  Felix  ;  I  have  always  thought  Ger- 
trude's nature  beautiful." 

"Well,  if  you  think  so  now,"  cried  the  young 
man,  "  wait  and  see !  She  's  a  folded  flower. 
Let  me  pluck  her  from  the  parent  tree  and  you 
will  see  her  expand.  I'm  sure  you  will  enjoy 
it." 


250  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  I  don't  understand  you,"  murmured  Charlotte. 
"  I  can't,  Felix." 

"Well,  you  can  understand  this — that  I  beg 
you  to  say  a  good  word  for  me  to  your  father. 
He  regards  me,  I  naturally  believe,  as  a  very  light 
fellow,  a  Bohemian,  an  irregular  character.  Tell 
him  I  am  not  all  this ;  if  I  ever  was,  I  have  for- 
gotten it.  I  am  fond  of  pleasure  —  yes ;  but  of 
innocent  pleasure.  Pain  is  all  one  ;  but  in  pleas- 
ure, you  know,  there  are  tremendous  distinctions. 
Say  to  him  that  Gertrude  is  a  folded  flower  and 
that  I  am  a  serious  man  !  " 

Charlotte  got  up  from  her  chair  slowly  rolling 
up  her  work.  "  We  know  you  are  very  kind  to 
every  one,  Felix,"  she  said.  "  But  we  are  ex- 
tremely sorry  for  Mr.  Brand." 

"  Of  course  you  are  —  you  especially  !  Because,' 
added  Felix  hastily,  "  you  are  a  woman.     But  I 
don't  pity  him.     It  ought  to  be  enough  for  any 
man  that  you  take  an  interest  in  him." 

"  It  is  not  enough  for  Mr.  Brand,"  said  Char- 
lotte, simply.  And  she  stood  there  a  moment,  as 
if  waiting  conscientiously  for  anything  more  that 
Felix  might  have  to  say. 

"  Mr.  Brand  is  not  so  keen  about  his  marriage 
as  he  was,"  he  presently  said.  "  He  is  afraid  of 
your  sister.  He  begins  to  think  she  is  wicked." 

Charlotte  looked  at  him  now  with  beautiful,  ap- 


THE  EUROPEANS.  251 

pealing  eyes  —  eyes  into  which  he  saw  the  tears 
rising.  "  Oh,  Felix,  Felix,"  she  cried,  "  what 
have  you  done  to  her  ?  " 

"  I  think  she  was  asleep ;  I  have  waked  her 
up!" 

But  Charlotte,  apparently,  was  really  crying , 
she  walked  straight  out  of  the  room.  And  Felix, 
standing  there  and  meditating,  had  the  apparent 
brutality  to  take  satisfaction  in  her  tears. 

Late  that  night  Gertrude,  silent  and  serious, 
came  to  him  in  the  garden ;  it  was  a  kind  of  ap- 
pointment. Gertrude  seemed  to  like  appointments. 
She  plucked  a  handful  of  heliotrope  and  stuck  it 
into  the  front  of  her  dress,  but  she  said  nothing. 
They  walked  together  along  one  of  the  paths,  and 
Felix  looked  at  the  great,  square,  hospitable  house, 
massing  itself  vaguely  in  the  starlight,  with  all  its 
windows  darkened. 

"  I  have  a  little  of  a  bad  conscience,"  he  said. 
"  I  oughtn't  to  meet  you  this  way  till  I  have  got 
your  father's  consent." 

Gertrude  looked  at  him  for  some  time.  "  I 
don't  understand  you." 

"  You  very  often  say  that,"  he  said.  "  Consid- 
ering how  little  we  understand  each  other,  it  is  a 
wonder  how  well  we  £et  on  !  " 

"We  have   done  nothing  but  meet  since   you 


252  THE  EUROPEANS. 

came  here  —  but  meet  alone.  The  first  time  I 
ever  saw  you  we  were  alone,"  Gertrude  went  on. 
"  What  is  the  difference  now  ?  Is  it  because  it  is 
at  night  ?  " 

"  The  difference,  Gertrude,"  said  Felix,  stop- 
ping in  the  path, "  the  difference  is  that  I  love  you 
more  —  more  than  before  !  "  And  then  they  stood 
there,  talking,  in  the  warm  stillness  and  in  front 
of  the  closed  dark  house.  "  I  have  been  talking 
to  Charlotte  —  been  trying  to  bespeak  her  inter- 
est with  your  father.  She  has  a  kind  of  sublime 
perversity ;  was  ever  a  woman  so  bent  upon  cut- 
ting off  her  own  head  ?  " 

"  You  are  too  careful,"  said  Gertrude ;  "  you  are 
too  diplomatic." 

"  Well,"  cried  the  young  man,  "  I  didn't  come 
here  to  make  any  one  unhappy  !  " 

Gertrude  looked  round  her  awhile  in  the  odor- 
ous darkness.  "I  will  do  anything  you  please,'' 
she  said. 

"  For  instance  ?  "  asked  Felix,  smiling. 

"  I  will  go  away.  I  will  do  anything  you 
please." 

Felix  looked  at  her  in  solemn  admiration. 
"  Yes,  we  will  go  away,"  he  said.  "  But  we  will 
make  peace  first." 

Gertrude  looked  about  her  again,  and  then  she 


THE  EUROPEANS.  253 

broke  out,  passionately,  "Why  do  they  try  to 
make  one  feel  guilty  ?  Why  do  they  make  it  so 
difficult  ?  Why  can't  they  understand  ?  " 

"  I  will  make  them  understand  !  "  said  Felix. 
He  drew  her  hand  into  his  arm,  and  they  wan- 
dered about  in  the  garden,  talking,  for  an  hour. 


XII. 

FELIX  allowed  Charlotte  time  to  plead  his 
cause;  and  then,  on  the  third  day,  he  sought  an 
interview  with  his  uncle.  It  was  in  the  morning  ; 
Mr.  Wentworth  was  in  his  office ;  and,  on  going 
in,  Felix  found  that  Charlotte  was  at  that  mo- 
ment in  conference  with  her  father.  She  had,  in 
fact,  been  constantly  near  him  since  her  interview 
with  Felix;  she  had  made  up  her  mind  that  it  was 
her  duty  to  repeat  very  literally  her  cousin's  pas- 
sionate plea.  She  had  accordingly  followed  Mr. 
Wentworth  about  like  a  shadow,  in  order  to  find 
him  at  hand  when  she  should  have  mustered  suf- 
ficient composure  to  speak.  For  poor  Charlotte, 
in  this  matter,  naturally  lacked  composure  ;  espe- 
cially when  she  meditated  upon  some  of  Felix's  in- 
timations. It  was  not  cheerful  work,  at  the  best, 
to  keep  giving  small  hammer-taps  to  the  coffin 
in  which  one  had  laid  away,  for  burial,  the  poor 
little  unacknowledged  offspring  of  one's  own  mis- 
behaving heart ;  and  the  occupation  was  not  ren- 
dered more  agreeable  by  the  fact  that  the  ghost  of 
one's  stifled  dream  had  been  summoned  from  the 


THE  EUROPEANS.  255 

shades  by  the  strange,  bold  words  of  a  talkative 
young  foreigner.  What  had  Felix  meant  by  say- 
ing that  Mr.  Brand  was  not  so  keen  ?  To  herself 
her  sister's  justly  depressed  suitor  had  shown  no 
sign  of  faltering.  Charlotte  trembled  all  over 
when  she  allowed  herself  to  believe  for  an  instant 
now  and  then  that,  privately,  Mr.  Brand  might 
have  faltered  ;  and  as  it  seemed  to  give  more  force 
to  Felix's  words  to  repeat  them  to  her  father,  she 
was  waiting  until  she  should  have  taught  herself 
to  be  very  calm.  But  she  had  now  begun  to  tell 
Mr.  Wentworth  that  she  was  extremely  anxious. 
She  was  proceeding  to  develop  this  idea,  to  enu- 
merate the  objects  of  her  anxiety,  when  Felix  came 
in. 

Mr.  Wentworth  sat  there,  with  his  legs  crossed, 
lifting  his  dry,  pure  countenance  from  the  Boston 
"Advertiser."  Felix  entered  smiling,  as  if  he  had 
something  particular  to  say,  and  his  uncle  looked 
at  him  as  if  he  both  expected  and  deprecated  this 
event.  Felix  vividly  expressing  himself  had  come 
to  be  a  formidable  figure  to  his  uncle,  who  had  not 
yet  arrived  at  definite  views  as  to  a  proper  tone. 
For  the  first  time  in  his  life,  as  I  have  said,  Mr. 
Wentworth  shirked  a  responsibility  ;  he  earnestly 
desired  that  it  might  not  be  laid  upon  him  to 
determine  how  his  nephew's  lighter  propositions 
should  be  treated.  He  lived  under  an  apprehen- 


256  THE  EUROPEANS. 

sion  that  Felix  might  yet  beguile  him  into  assent  to 
doubtful  inductions,  and  his  conscience  instructed 
him  that  the  best  form  of  vigilance  was  the  avoid- 
ance of  discussion.  He  hoped  that  the  pleasant 
episode  of  his  nephew's  visit  would  pass  away 
without  a  further  lapse  of  consistency. 

Felix  looked  at  Charlotte  with  an  air  of  under- 
standing, and  then  at  Mr.  Wentworth,  and  then 
at  Charlotte  again.  Mr.  Wentworth  bent  his  re- 
fined eyebrows  upon  his  nephew  and  stroked  down 
the  first  page  of  the  "  Advertiser."  "  I  ought  to 
have  brought  a  bouquet,"  said  Felix,  laughing. 
"  In  France  they  always  do." 

"  We  are  not  in  France,"  observed  Mr.  Went- 
worth, gravely,  while  Charlotte  earnestly  gazed  at 
him. 

"No,  luckily,  we  are  not  in  France,  where  I  am 
Afraid  I  should  have  a  harder  time  of  it.  My  dear 
Charlotte,  have  you  rendered  me  that  delightful 
service  ?  "  And  Felix  bent  toward  her  as  if  some 
one  had  been  presenting  him. 

Charlotte  looked  at  him  with  almost  frightened 
eyes ;  and  Mr.  Wentworth  thought  this  might  be 
the  beginning  of  a  discussion.  "  What  is  the 
bouquet  for  ?  "  he  inquired,  by  way  of  turning  it 
off. 

Felix  gazed  at  him,  smiling.  "  Pour  la  de- 
mande ! "  And  then,  drawing  up  a  chair,  he 


THE  EUROPEANS.  257 

seated  himself,  hat  in  hand,  with  a  kind  of  con- 
scious solemnity. 

Presently  he  turned  to  Charlotte  again.  "  My 
good  Charlotte,  my  admirable  Charlotte,"  he  mur- 
mured, "  you  have  not  played  me  false  —  you 
have  not  sided  against  me  ?  " 

Charlotte  got  up,  trembling  extremely,  though 
imperceptibly.  "  You  must  speak  to  my  father 
yourself,"  she  said.  "I  think  you  are  clever 
enough." 

But  Felix,  rising  too,  begged  her  to  remain. 
"  I  can  speak  better  to  an  audience ! "  he  declared. 

"I  hope  it  is  nothing  disagreeable,"  said  Mr. 
Wentworth. 

"  It 's  something  delightful,  for  me !  "  And  Fe- 
lix, laying  down  his  hat,  clasped  his  hands  a  little 
between  his  knees.  "  My  dear  uncle,"  he  said, 
"  I  desire,  very  earnestly,  to  marry  your  daughter 
Gertrude."  Charlotte  sank  slowly  into  her  chair 
again,  and  Mr.  Wentworth  sat  staring,  with  a 
light  in  his  face  that  might  have  been  flashed  back 
from  an  iceberg.  He  stared  and  stared ;  he  said 
nothing.  Felix  fell  back,  with  his  hands  still 
clasped.  "  Ah  —  you  don't  like  it.  I  was  afraid !  " 
He  blushed  deeply,  and  Charlotte  noticed  it — re- 
marking to  herself  that  it  was  the  first  time  she 
had  ever  seen  him  blush.  She  began  to  blush 

17 


258  THE  EUROPEANS. 

herself  and  to  reflect  that  he  might  be  much  in 
love. 

"  This  is  very  abrupt,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth,  at 
last. 

"  Have  you  never  suspected  it,  dear  uncle  ? " 
Felix  inquired.  "Well,  that  proves  how  discreet 
I  have  been.  Yes,  I  thought  you  would  n't  like 
it." 

"  It  is  very  serious,  Felix,"  said  Mr.  Went- 
worth. 

"  You  tbink  it 's  an  abuse  of  hospitality !  "  ex- 
claimed Felix,  smiling  again. 

"  Of  hospitality  ?  —  an  abuse  ?  "  his  uncle  re- 
peated very  slowly, 

"  That  is  what  Felix  said  to  me,"  said  Char- 
lotte, conscientiously. 

"  Of  course  you  think  so ;  don't  defend  your- 
self ! "  Felix  pursued.  "  It  is  an  abuse,  obviously  ; 
the  most  I  can  claim  is  that  it  is  perhaps  a  par- 
donable one.  I  simply  fell  head  over  heels  in 
love;  one  can  hardly  help  that.  Though  you  are 
Gertrude's  progenitor  I  don't  believe  you  know 
how  attractive  she  is.  Dear  uncle,  she  contains  the 
elements  of  a  singularly  —  I  may  say  a  strangely 
—  charming  woman  !  " 

"  She  has  always  been  to  me  an  object  of  ex- 
treme concern,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth.  "  We  have 
always  desired  her  happiness." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  259 

"  Well,  here  it  is  !  "  Felix  declared.  "  I  will 
make  her  happy.  She  believes  it,  too.  Now 
had  n't  you  noticed  that  ?  " 

"I  had  noticed  that  she  was  much  changed," 
Mr.  Wentworth  declared,  in  a  tone  whose  unex- 
pressive,  unimpassioned  quality  appeared  to  Felix 
to  reveal  a  profundity  of  opposition.  "  It  may  be 
that  she  is  only  becoming  what  you  call  a  charm- 
ing woman." 

"  Gertrude,  at  heart,  is  so  earnest,  so  true,"  said 
Charlotte,  very  softly,  fastening  her  eyes  upon  her 
father. 

"  I  delight  to  hear  you  praise  her !  "  cried  Fe- 
lix. 

"  She  has  a  very  peculiar  temperament,"  said 
Mr.  Wentworth. 

"  Eh,  even  that  is  praise  !  "  Felix  rejoined.  "  I 
know  I  am  not  the  man  you  might  have  looked 
for.  I  have  no  position  and  no  fortune ;  I  can 
give  Gertrude  no  place  in  the  world.  A  place  in 
the  world  —  that 's  what  she  ought  to  have ;  that 
would  bring  her  out." 

"  A  place  to  do  her  duty ! "  remarked  Mr. 
Wentworth. 

"  Ah,  how  charmingly  she  does  it  —  her  duty !  " 
Felix  exclaimed,  with  a  radiant  face.  "  What  an 
exquisite  conception  she  has  of  it !  But  she  comes 
honestly  by  that,  dear  uncle."  Mr.  Wentworth 


260  THE  EUROPEANS. 

and  Charlotte  both  looked  at  him  as  if  they  were 
watching  a  greyhound  doubling.  "  Of  course 
with  me  she  will  hide  her  light  under  a  bushel," 
he  continued  ;  "  I  being  the  bushel !  Now  I  know 
you  like  me  —  you  have  certainly  proved  it.  But 
you  think  I  am  frivolous  and  penniless  and 
shabby  I  Granted  —  granted  —  a  thousand  times 
granted.  I  have  been  a  loose  fish  —  a  fiddler,  a 
painter,  an  actor.  But  there  is  this  to  be  said  : 
In  the  first  place,  I  fancy  you  exaggerate ;  you 
lend  me  qualities  I  have  n't  had.  I  have  been  a 
Bohemian  —  yes  ;  but  in  Bohemia  I  always  passed 
for  a  gentleman.  I  wish  you  could  see  some  of  my 
old  camarades  —  they  would  tell  you !  It  was  the 
liberty  I  liked,  but  not  the  opportunities !  My 
sins  were  all  peccadilloes ;  I  always  respected  my 
neighbor's  property  —  my  neighbor's  wife.  Do 
you  see,  dear  uncle  ?  "  Mr.  Wentworth  ought  to 
have  seen  ;  his  cold  blue  eyes  were  intently  fixed. 
"And  then,  Jest  fini!  It's  all  over.  Je  me 
range.  I  have  settled  down  to  a  jog-trot.  I  find 
I  can  earn  my  living  —  a  very  fair  one  —  by  go- 
ing about  the  world  and  painting  bad  portraits. 
It 's  not  a  glorious  profession,  but  it  is  a  perfectly 
respectable  one.  You  won't  deny  that,  eh  ?  Go- 
ing about  the  world,  I  say  ?  I  must  not  deny  that, 
for  that  I  am  afraid  I  shall  always  do  —  in  quest 
of  agreeable  sitters.  When  I  say  agreeable,  I 


THE  EUROPEANS.  261 

mean  susceptible  of  delicate  flattery  and  prompt 
of  payment.  Gertrude  declares  she  is  willing  to 
share  my  wanderings  and  help  to  pose  my  models. 
She  even  thinks  it  will  be  charming ;  and  that 
brings  me  to  my  third  point.  Gertrude  likes  me, 
Encourage  her  a  little  and  she  will  tell  you  so." 

Felix's  tongue  obviously  moved  much  faster 
than  the  imagination  of  his  auditors;  his  elo- 
quence, like  the  rocking  of  a  boat  in  a  deep, 
smooth  lake,  made  long  eddies  of  silence.  And 
he  seemed  to  be  pleading  and  chattering  still, 
with  his  brightly  eager  smile,  his  uplifted  eye- 
brows, his  expressive  mouth,  after  he  had  ceased 
speaking,  and  while,  with  his  glance  quickly 
turning  from  the  father  to  the  daughter,  he  sat 
waiting  for  the  effect  of  his  appeal.  "It  is  not 
your  want  of  means,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth,  after 
a  period  of  severe  reticence. 

"  Now  it's  delightful  of  you  to  say  that !  Only 
don't  say  it 's  my  want  of  character.  Because  I 
have  a  character  —  I  assure  you  I  have  ;  a  small 
one,  a  little  slip  of  a  thing,  but  still  something 
tangible." 

"  Ought  you  not  to  tell  Felix  that  it  is  Mr. 
Brand,  father  ? "  Charlotte  asked,  with  infinite 
mildness. 

"It  is  not  only  Mr.  Brand,"  Mr.  Wentworth 
solemnly  declared.  And  he  looked  at  his  knee 


262  THE  EUROPEANS. 

for  a  long  time.  "  It  is  difficult  to  explain,"  he 
said.  He  wished,  evidently,  to  be  very  just.  "It 
rests  on  moral  grounds,  as  Mr.  Brand  says.  It  is 
the  question  whether  it  is  the  best  thing  for  Ger- 
trude." 

"  What  is  better  —  what  is  better,  dear  uncle  ?  " 
Felix  rejoined  urgently,  rising  in  his  urgency  and 
standing  before  Mr.  Wentworth.  His  uncle  had 
been  looking  at  his  knee  ;  but  when  Felix  moved 
he  transferred  his  gaze  to  the  handle  of  the  door 
which  faced  him.  "  It  is  usually  a  fairly  good 
thing  for  a  girl  to  marry  the  man  she  loves  !  " 
cried  Felix. 

While  he  spoke,  Mr.  Wentworth  saw  the  handle 
of  the  door  begin  to  turn ;  the  door  opened  and 
remained  slightly  ajar,  until  Felix  had  delivered 
himself  of  the  cheerful  axiom  just  quoted.  Then 
it  opened  altogether  and  Gertrude  stood  there. 
She  looked  excited  ;  there  was  a  spark  in  her 
sweet,  dull  eyes.  She  came  in  slowly,  but  with 
an  air  of  resolution,  and,  closing  the  door  softly, 
looked  round  at  the  three  persons  present.  Felix 
went  to  her  with  tender  gallantry,  holding  out  his 
hand,  and  Charlotte  made  a  place  for  her  on  the 
sofa.  But  Gertrude  put  her  hands  behind  her  and 
made  no  motion  to  sit  down. 

"  We  are  talking  of  you !  "  said  Felix. 

"I  know  it,"   she  answered.     "That's  why  I 


THE  EUROPEANS.  263 

came."  And  she  fastened  her  eyes  on  her  father, 
who  returned  her  gaze  very  fixedly.  In  his  own 
cold  blue  eyes  there  was  a  kind  of  pleading,  rea- 
soning light. 

"It  is  better  you  should  be  present,"  said  Mr. 
Wentworth.  "  We  are  discussing  your  future." 

"  Why  discuss  it  ?  "  asked  Gertrude.  "  Leave 
it  to  me." 

"That  is,  to  me!  "  cried  Felix. 

"  I  leave  it,  in  the  last  resort,  to  a  greater  wis- 
dom than  ours,"  said  the  old  man. 

Felix  rubbed  his  forehead  gently.  "  But  en  at- 
tendant the  last  resort,  your  father  lacks  confi- 
dence," he  said  to  Gertrude. 

"  Have  n't  you  confidence  in  Felix?  "  Gertrude 
was  frowning ;  there  was  something  about  her  that 
her  father  and  Charlotte  had  never  seen.  Char- 
lotte got  up  and  came  to  her,  as  if  to  put  her  arm 
round  her;  but  suddenly,  she  seemed  afraid  to 
touch  her. 

Mr.  Wentworth,  however,  was  not  afraid.  "  I 
have  had  more  confidence  in  Felix  than  in  you," 
he  said. 

"  Yes,  you  have  never  had  confidence  in  me  — 
never,  never !  I  don't  know  why." 

"  Oh  sister,  sister!  "  murmured  Charlotte. 

"  You  have  always  needed  advice,"  Mr.  Went- 
worth declared.  "  You  have  had  a  difficult  tem- 
perament." 


264  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Why  do  you  call  it  difficult  ?  It  might  have 
been  easy,  if  you  had  allowed  it.  You  would  n't 
let  me  be  natural.  I  don't  know  what  you  wanted 
to  make  of  me.  Mr.  Brand  was  the  worst." 

Charlotte  at  last  took  hold  of  her  sister.  She 
laid  her  two  hands  upon  Gertrude's  arm.  "He 
cares  so  much  for  you,"  she  almost  whispered. 

Gertrude  looked  at  her  intently  an  instant ;  then 
kissed  her.  "  No,  he  does  not,"  she  said. 

"  I  have  never  seen  you  so  passionate,"  observed 
Mr.  Wentworth,  with  an  air  of  indignation  miti- 
gated by  high  principles. 

"  I  am  sorry  if  I  offend  you,"  said  Gertrude. 

"You  offend  me,  but  I  don't  think  you  are 
sorry." 

"  Yes,  father,  she  is  sorry,"  said  Charlotte. 

"I  would  even  go  further,  dear  uncle,"  Felix 
interposed.  "  I  would  question  whether  she  really 
offends  you.  How  can  she  offend  you  ?  " 

To  this  Mr.  Wentworth  made  no  immediate 
answer.  Then,  in  a  moment,  "  She  has  not 
profited  as  we  hoped." 

"  Profited  ?     Ah  voild  !  "  Felix  exclaimed. 

Gertrude  was  very  pale;  she  stood  looking 
down.  "  I  have  told  Felix  I  would  go  away  with 
him,"  she  presently  said. 

"  Ah,  you  have  said  some  admirable  things ! " 
cried  the  young  man. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  265 

"  Go  away,  sister  ?  "  asked  Charlotte. 

"  Away  —  away ;  to  some  strange  country." 

"  That  is  to  frighten  you,"  said  Felix,  smiling 
at  Charlotte. 

"To  —  what  do  you  call  it?"  asked  Gertrude, 
turning  an  instant  to  Felix.  "  To  Bohemia." 

"  Do  you  propose  to  dispense  with  prelimina- 
ries ?  "  asked  Mr.  Went  worth,  getting  up. 

"  Dear  uncle,  vous  plaisantez ! "  cried  Felix. 
"  It  seems  to  me  that  these  are  preliminaries." 

Gertrude  turned  to  her  father.  "I  have  prof- 
ited," she  said.  "  You  wanted  to  form  my  char- 
acter. Well,  my  character  is  formed  —  for  my 
age.  I  know  what  I  want;  I  have  chosen.  I 
am  determined  to  marry  this  gentleman." 

"  You  had  better  consent,  sir,"  said  Felix  very 
gently. 

"  Yes,  sir,  you  had  better  consent,"  added  a 
very  different  voice. 

Charlotte  gave  a  little  jump,  and  the  others 
turned  to  the  direction  from  which  it  had  come. 
It  was  the  voice  of  Mr.  Brand,  who  had  stepped 
through  the  long  window  which  stood  open  to  the 
piazza.  He  stood  patting  his  forehead  with  his 
pocket-handkerchief  ;  he  was  very  much  flushed  ; 
his  face  wore  a  singular  expression. 

"  Yes,  sir,  you  had  better  consent,"  Mr.  Brand 
repeated,  coming  forward.  "  I  know  what  Miss 
Gertrude  means." 


266  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  My  dear  friend  !  "  murmured  Felix,  laying  his 
hand  caressingly  on  the  young  minister's  arm. 

Mr.  Brand  looked  at  him ;  then  at  Mr.  Went- 
worth ;  lastly  at  Gertrude.  He  did  not  look  at 
Charlotte.  But  Charlotte's  earnest  eyes  were  fast- 
ened to  his  own  countenance  ;  they  were  asking 
an  immense  question  of  it.  The  answer  to  this 
question  could  not  come  all  at  once  ;  but  some 
of  the  elements  of  it  were  there.  It  was  one  of 
the  elements  of  it  that  Mr.  Brand  was  very  red, 
that  he  held  his  head  very  high,  that  he  had  a 
bright,  excited  eye  and  an  air  of  embarrassed 
boldness  —  the  air  of  a  man  who  has  taken  a  re- 
solve, in  the  execution  of  which  he  apprehends  the 
failure,  not  of  his  moral,  but  of  his  personal,  re- 
sources. Charlotte  thought  he  looked  very  grand ; 
and  it  is  incontestable  that  Mr.  Brand  felt  very 
grand.  This,  in  fact,  was  the  grandest  moment 
of  his  life ;  and  it  was  natural  that  such  a  moment 
should  contain  opportunities  of  awkwardness  for 
a  large,  stout,  modest  young  man. 

"  Come  in,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Went  worth,  with  an 
angular  wave  of  his  hand.  "  It  is  very  proper 
that  you  should  be  present." 

"I  know  what  you  are  talking  about,"  Mr, 
Brand  rejoined.  "  I  heard  what  your  nephew 
said." 

"  And  he  heard  what  you  said  I "  exclaimed 
Felix,  patting  him  again  on  the  arm. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  267 

"I  am  not  sure  that  I  understood,"  said  Mr. 
Wentworth,  who  had  angularity  in  his  voice  as 
well  as  in  his  gestures. 

Gertrude  had  been  looking  hard  at  her  former 
suitor.  She  had  been  puzzled,  like  her  sister  ;  but 
her  imagination  moved  more  quickly  than  Char- 
lotte's. "  Mr.  Brand  asked  you  to  let  Felix  take 
me  away,"  she  said  to  her  father. 

The  young  minister  gave  her  a  strange  look. 
"  It  is  not  because  I  don't  want  to  see  you  any 
more,"  he  declared,  in  a  tone  intended  as  it  were 
for  publicity. 

"  I  should  n't  think  you  would  want  to  see  me 
any  more,"  Gertrude  answered,  gently. 

Mr.  Wentworth  stood  staring.  "  Is  n't  this 
rather  a  change,  sir  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"  Yes,  sir."  And  Mr.  Brand  looked  anywhere  ; 
only  still  not  at  Charlotte.  "  Yes,  sir,"  he  re- 
peated. And  he  held  his  handkerchief  a  few  mo- 
ments to  his  lips. 

"  Where  are  our  moral  grounds  ?  "  demanded 
Mr.  Wentworth,  who  had  always  thought  Mr. 
Brand  would  be  just  the  thing  for  a  younger 
daughter  with  a  peculiar  temperament. 

"  It  is  sometimes  very  moral  to  change,  you 
know,"  suggested  Felix. 

Charlotte  had  softly  left  her  sister's  side.  She 
had  edged  gently  toward  her  father,  and  now  her 


268  THE  EUROPEANS. 

hand  found  its  way  into  his  arm.  Mr.  Wentworth 
had  folded  up  the  "Advertiser"  into  a  surpris- 
ingly small  compass,  and,  holding  the  roll  with  one 
hand,  he  earnestly  clasped  it  with  the  other.  Mr. 
Brand  was  looking  at  him  ;  and  yet,  though  Char- 
lotte was  so  near,  his  eyes  failed  to  meet  her  own. 
Gertrude  watched  her  sister. 

"  It  is  better  not  to  speak  of  change,"  said  Mr. 
Brand.  "  In  one  sense  there  is  no  change.  There 
was  something  I  desired  —  something  I  asked  of 
you ;  I  desire  something  still  —  I  ask  it  of  you." 
And  he  paused  a  moment ;  Mr.  Wentworth  looked 
bewildered.  "  I  should  like,  in  my  ministerial 
capacity,  to  unite  this  young  couple." 

Gertrude,  watching  her  sister,  saw  Charlotte 
flushing  intensely,  and  Mr.  Wentworth  felt  her 
pressing  upon  his  arm.  "  Heavenly  Powers  ! " 
murmured  Mr.  Wentworth.  And  it  was  the  near- 
est approach  to  profanity  he  had  ever  made. 

"  That  is  very  nice  ;  that  is  very  handsome  I  " 
Felix  exclaimed. 

"  I  don't  understand,"  said  Mr.  Wentworth  ; 
though  it  was  plain  that  every  one  else  did. 

"That  is  very  beautiful,  Mr.  Brand,"  said  Ger- 
trude, emulating  Felix. 

"  I  should  like  to  marry  you.  It  will  give  me 
great  pleasure." 

"  As  Gertrude  says,  it 's  a  beautiful  idea,"  said 
Felix. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  269 

Felix  was  smiling,  but  Mr.  Brand  was  not  even 
trying  to.  He  himself  treated  his  proposition  very 
seriously.  "  I  have  thought  of  it,  and  I  should 
like  to  do  it,"  he  affirmed. 

Charlotte,  meanwhile,  was  staring  with  ex- 
panded eyes.  Her  imagination,  as  I  have  said, 
was  not  so  rapid  as  her  sister's,  but  now  it  had 
taken  several  little  jumps.  "Father,"  she  mur- 
mured, "  consent ! " 

Mr.  Brand  heard  her;  he  looked  away.  Mr. 
Wentworth,  evidently,  had  no  imagination  at  all. 
"  I  have  always  thought,"  he  began,  slowly,  "that 
Gertrude's  character  required  a  special  line  of  de- 
velopment." 

"  Father,"  repeated  Charlotte,  "  consent." 

Then,  at  last,  Mr.  Brand  looked  at  her.  Her 
father  felt  her  leaning  more  heavily  upon  his 
folded  arm  than  she  had  ever  done  before  ;  and 
this,  with  a  certain  sweet  faintness  in  her  voice, 
made  him  wonder  what  was  the  matter.  He 
looked  down  at  her  and  saw  the  encounter  of  her 
gaze  with  the  young  theologian's ;  but  even  this 
told  him  nothing,  and  he  continued  to  be  bewil- 
dered. Nevertheless,  "  I  consent,"  he  said  at  last, 
"  since  Mr.  Brand  recommends  it." 

"I  should  like  to  perform  the  ceremony  very 
soon,"  observed  Mr.  Brand,  with  a  sort  of  solemn 
simplicity. 


270  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Come,  come,  that 's  charming  !  "  cried  Felix, 
profanely. 

Mr.  Wentworth  sank  into  his  chair.  "  Doubt- 
less, when  you.  understand  it,"  he  said,  with  a  cer- 
tain judicial  asperity. 

Gertrude  went  to  her  sister  and  led  her  away, 
and  Felix  having  passed  his  arm  into  Mr.  Brand's 
and  stepped  out  of  the  long  window  with  him,  the 
old  man  was  left  sitting  there  in  unillumined  per- 
plexity. 

Felix  did  no  work  that  day.  In  the  afternoon, 
with  Gertrude,  he  got  into  one  of  the  boats  and 
floated  about  with  idly-dipping  oars.  They  talked 
a  good  deal  of  Mr.  Brand  —  though  not  exclu- 
sively. 

"  That  was  a  fine  stroke,"  said  Felix.  "  It  was 
really  heroic." 

Gertrude  sat  musing,  with  her  eyes  upon  the 
ripples.  "  That  was  what  he  wanted  to  be ;  he 
wanted  to  do  something  fine." 

"  He  won't  be  comfortable  till  he  has  married 
us,"  said  Felix.  uSo  much  the  better." 

"  He  wanted  to  be  magnanimous  ;  he  wanted  to 
have  a  fine  moral  pleasure.  I  know  him  so  well," 
Gertrude  went  on.  Felix  looked  af>  her  ;  she  spoke 
slowly,  gazing  at  the  clear  water.  "  He  thought 
of  it  a  great  deal,  night  and  day.  He  thought  it 
would  be  beautiful.  At  last  he  made  up  his  mind 


THE  EUROPEANS.  271 

that  it  was  his  duty,  his  duty  to  do  just  that  — 
nothing  less  than  that.  He  felt  exalted ;  he  felt 
sublime.  That 's  how  he  likes  to  feel.  It  is  bet- 
ter for  him  than  if  I  had  listened  to  him." 

"  It 's  better  for  me,"  smiled  Felix.  "  But  do 
you  know,  as  regards  the  sacrifice,  that  I  don't  be- 
lieve he  admired  you  when  this  decision  was  taken 
quite  so  much  as  he  had  done  a  fortnight  before  ?  " 

"  He  never  admired  me.  He  admires  Charlotte ; 
he  pitied  me.  I  know  him  so  well." 

"  Well,  then,  he  did  n't  pity  you  so  much." 

Gertrude  looked  at  Felix  a  little,  smiling.  "  You 
should  n't  permit  yourself,"  she  said,  "  to  diminish 
the  splendor  of  his  action.  He  admires  Charlotte," 
she  repeated. 

"  That 's  capital !  "  said  Felix  laughingly,  and 
dipping  his  oars.  I  cannot  say  exactly  to  which 
member  of  Gertrude's  phrase  he  alluded ;  but  he 
dipped  his  oars  again,  and  they  kept  floating  about. 

Neither  Felix  nor  his  sister,  on  that  day,  was 
present  at  Mr.  Wentworth's  at  the  evening  repast. 
The  two  occupants  of  the  chalet  dined  together, 
and  the  young  man  informed  his  companion  that 
his  marriage  was  now  an  assured  fact.  Eugenia 
congratulated  him,  and  replied  that  if  he  were  as 
reasonable  a  husband  as  he  had  been,  on  the  whole, 
a  brother,  his  wife  would  have  nothing  to  com- 
plain of. 


272  THE  EUROPEANS. 

Felix  looked  at  her  a  moment,  smiling.  "I 
hope,"  he  said,  "  not  to  be  thrown  back  on  my 
reason." 

"It  is  very  true,"  Eugenia  rejoined,  "  that  one's 
reason  is  dismally  flat.  It 's  a  bed  with  the  mat- 
tress removed." 

But  the  brother  and  sister,  later  in  the  even- 
ing, crossed  over  to  the  larger  house,  the  Baroness 
desiring  to  compliment  her  prospective  sister-in- 
law.  They  found  the  usual  circle  upon  the  piaz- 
za, with  the  exception  of  Clifford  Wentworth  and 
Lizzie  Acton ;  and  as  every  one  stood  up  as  usual 
to  welcome  the  Baroness,  Eugenia  had  an  admir- 
ing audience  for  her  compliment  to  Gertrude. 

Robert  Acton  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  piazza, 
leaning  against  one  of  the  white  columns,  so  that 
he  found  himself  next  to  Eugenia  while  she  ac- 
quitted herself  of  a  neat  little  discourse  of  con- 
gratulation. 

"  I  shall  be  so  glad  to  know  you  better,"  she 
said ;  "  I  have  seen  so  much  less  of  you  than  I 
should  have  liked.  Naturally;  now  I  see  the 
reason  why !  You  will  love  me  a  little,  won't 
you  ?  I  think  I  may  say  I  gain  on  being  known." 
And  terminating  these  observations  with  the  soft- 
est cadence  of  her  voice,  the  Baroness  imprinted 
a  sort  of  grand  official  kiss  upon  Gertrude's  fore- 
head. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  273 

Increased  familiarity  had  not,  to  Gertrude's 
imagination,  diminished  the  mysterious  impress- 
iveness  of  Eugenia's  personality,  and  she  felt  flat- 
tered and  transported  by  this  little  ceremony. 
Robert  Acton  also  seemed  to  admire  it,  as  he 
admired  so  many  of  the  gracious  manifestations 
of  Madame  Minister's  wit. 

They  had  the  privilege  of  making  him  restless, 
and  on  this  occasion  he  walked  away,  suddenly, 
with  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  then  came 
back  and  leaned  against  his  column.  Eugenia 
was  now  complimenting  her  uncle  upon  his  daugh- 
ter's engagement,  and  Mr.  Wentworth  was  listen- 
ing with  his  usual  plain  yet  refined  politeness. 
It  is  to  be  supposed  that  by  this  time  his  percep- 
tion of  the  mutual  relations  of  the  young  people 
who  surrounded  him  had  become  more  acute ;  but 
he  still  took  the  matter  very  seriously,  and  he 
was  not  at  all  exhilarated. 

"  Felix  will  make  her  a  good  husband,"  said 
Eugenia.  "  He  will  be  a  charming  companion  ; 
he  has  a  great  quality  —  indestructible  gayety." 

"  You  think  that's  a  great  quality  ?  "  asked  the 
old  man. 

Eugenia  meditated,  with  her  eyes  upon  his. 
"  You  think  one  gets  tired  of  it,  eh  ?  " 

u  I  don't  know  that  I  am  prepared  to  say  that," 
said  Mr.  Wentworth. 

18 


274  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"  Well,  we  will  say,  then,  that  it  is  tiresome  for 
others  but  delightful  for  one's  self.  A  woman's 
husband,  you  know,  is  supposed  to  be  her  second 
self ;  so  that,  for  Felix  and  Gertrude,  gayety  will 
be  a  common  property." 

"  Gertrude  was  always  very  gay,"  said  Mr. 
Wentworth.  He  was  trying  to  follow  this  argu- 
ment. 

Robert  Acton  took  his  hands  out  of  his  pockets 
and  came  a  little  nearer  to  the  Baroness.  "  You 
say  you  gain  by  being  known,"  he  said.  "  One 
certainly  gains  by  knowing  you." 

"  What  have  you  gained  ?  "  asked  Eugenia. 

"  An  immense  amount  of  wisdom." 

"That's  a  questionable  advantage  for  a  man 
who  was  already  so  wise  !  " 

Acton  shook  his  head.  "  No,  I  was  a  great  fool 
before  I  knew  you !  " 

"  And  being  a  fool  you  made  my  acquaintance  ? 
You  are  very  complimentary." 

"  Let  me  keep  it  up,"  said  Acton,  laughing. 
"  I  hope,  for  our  pleasure,  that  your  brother's 
marriage  will  detain  you." 

"  Why  should  I  stop  for  my  brother's  marriage 
when  I  would  not  stop  for  my  own  ? "  asked  the 
Baroness. 

"  Why  should  n't  you  stop  in  either  case,  now 
that,  as  you  say,  you  have  dissolved  that  mechan- 
ical tie  that  bound  you  to  Kurope  ?  " 


THE  EUROPEANS.  275 

The  Baroness  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "  As  I 
say  ?  You  look  as  if  you  doubted  it." 

"  Ah,"  said  Acton,  returning  her  glance,  "  that 
is  a  remnant  of  my  old  folly  !  We  have  other  at- 
tractions," he  added.  "  We  are  to  have  another 
marriage." 

But  she  seemed  not  to  hear  him  ;  she  was  look- 
ing at  him  still.  "  My  word  was  never  doubted 
before,"  she  said. 

"  We  are  to  have  another  marriage,"  Acton  re- 
peated, smiling. 

Then  she  appeared  to  understand.  "  Another 
marriage  ?  "  And  she  looked  at  the  others.  Fe- 
lix was  chattering  to  Gertrude ;  Charlotte,  at  a 
distance,  was  watching  them ;  and  Mr.  Brand,  in 
quite  another  quarter,  was  turning  his  back  to 
them,  and,  with  his  hands  under  his  coat-tails  and 
his  large  head  on  one  side,  was  looking  at  the 
small,  tender  crescent  of  a  young  moon.  "  It 
ought  to  be  Mr.  Brand  and  Charlotte,"  said  Eu- 
genia, "  but  it  does  n't  look  like  it." 

"There,"  Acton  answered,  "you  must  judge 
just  now  by  contraries.  There  is  more  than  there 
looks  to  be.  I  expect  that  combination  one  of 
these  days ;  but  that  is  not  what  I  meant." 

"  Well,"  said  the  Baroness,  "  I  never  guess  my 
own  lovers ;  so  I  can't  guess  other  people's." 

Acton  gave  a  loud  laugh,  and  he  was  about  to 


276  THE  EUROPEANS. 

add  a  rejoinder  when  Mr.  Wentworth  approached 
his  niece.  "  You  will  be  interested  to  hear,"  the 
old  man  said,  with  a  momentary  aspiration  to- 
ward jocosity,  "  of  another  matrimonial  venture  in 
our  little  circle." 

"I  was  just  telling  the  Baroness,"  Acton  ob- 
served. 

u  Mr.  Acton  was  apparently  about  to  announce 
his  own  engagement,"  said  Eugenia. 

Mr.  Wentworth's  jocosity  increased.  "  It  is 
not  exactly  that;  but  it  is  in  the  family.  Clif- 
ford, hearing  this  morning  that  Mr.  Brand  had 
expressed  a  desire  to  tie  the  nuptial  knot  for  his 
sister,  took  it  into  his  head  to  arrange  that,  while 
his  hand  was  in,  our  good  friend  should  perform  a 
like  ceremony  for  himself  and  Lizzie  Acton." 

The  Baroness  threw  back  her  head  and  smiled 
at  her  uncle;  then  turning,  with  an  intenser  ra- 
diance, to  Robert  Acton,  "  I  am  certainly  very 
stupid  not  to  have  thought  of  that,"  she  said.  Ac- 
ton looked  down  at  his  boots,  as  if  he  thought 
he  had  perhaps  reached  the  limits  of  legitimate 
experimentation,  and  for  a  moment  Eugenia  said 
nothing  more.  It  had  been,  in  fact,  a  sharp  knock, 
and  she  needed  to  recover  herself.  This  was  done, 
however,  promptly  enough.  "  Where  are  the  young 
people  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  They  are  spending  the  evening  with  my 
mother." 


THE  EUROPEANS.  277 

"  Is  not  the  thing  very  sudden?  " 

Acton  looked  up.  "  Extremely  sudden.  There 
had  been  a  tacit  understanding  ;  but  within  a  day 
or  two  Clifford  appears  to  have  received  some  mys- 
terious impulse  to  precipitate  the  affair." 

"  The  impulse,"  said  the  Baroness,  *'  was  the 
charms  of  your  very  pretty  sister." 

"  But  my  sister's  charms  were  an  old  story ;  he 
had  always  known  her."  Acton  had  begun  to 
experiment  again. 

Here,  however,  it  was  evident  the  Baroness 
would  not  help  him.  "  Ah,  one  can't  say  !  Clif- 
ford is  very  young ;  but  he  is  a  nice  boy." 

"  He's  a  likeable  sort  of  boy,  and  he  will  be  a 
rich  man."  This  was  Acton's  last  experiment. 
Madame  Miinster  turned  away. 

She  made  but  a  short  visit  and  Felix  took  her 
home.  In  her  little  drawing-room  she  went  almost 
straight  to  the  mirror  over  the  chimney-piece,  and, 
with  a  candle  uplifted,  stood  looking  into  it.  "I 
shall  not  wait  for  your  marriage,"  she  said  to  her 
brother.  "  To  morrow  my  maid  shall  pack  up." 

"  My  dear  sister,"  Felix  exclaimed,  "  we  are  to 
be  married  immediately  !  Mr.  Brand  is  too  un- 
comfortable." 

But  Eugenia,  turning  and  still  holding  her 
candle  aloft,  only  looked  about  the  little  sitting- 
room  at  her  gimcracks  and  curtains  and  cushions. 


278  THE  EUROPEANS. 

"My  maid  shall  pack  up,"  she  repeated.  "  Bont6 
divine,  what  rubbish  I  I  feel  like  a  strolling  act- 
ress ;  these  are  my  4  properties.' " 

"  Is  the  play  over,  Eugenia  ?  "  asked  Felix. 

She  gave  him  a  sharp  glance.  "  I  have  spoken 
my  part." 

"  With  great  applause  !  "  said  her  brother. 

"Oh,  applause  —  applause!"  she  murmured. 
And  she  gathered  up  two  or  three  of  her  dispersed 
draperies.  She  glanced  at  the  beautiful  brocade, 
and  then,  "  I  don't  see  how  I  can  have  endured 
it  I  "  she  said. 

"  Endure  it  a  little  longer.  Come  to  my  wed- 
ding." 

"  Thank  you  ;  that 's  your  affair.  My  affairs 
are  elsewhere." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  " 

"  To  Germany  —  by  the  first  ship." 

"  You  have  decided  not  to  marry  Mr.  Acton  ?  " 

"  I  have  refused  him,"  said  Eugenia. 

Her  brother  looked  at  her  in  silence.  "  I  am 
sorry,"  he  rejoined  at  last.  "  But  I  was  very  dis- 
creet, as  you  asked  me  to  be.  I  said  nothing." 

"  Please  continue,  then,  not  to  allude  to  the 
matter,"  said  Eugenia. 

Felix  inclined  himself  gravely.  "  You  shall  be 
obeyed.  But  your  position  in  Germany?"  he 
pursued. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  279 

"  Please  to  make  no  observations  upon  it." 

"  I  was  only  going  to  say  that  I  supposed  it 
was  altered." 

"  You  are  mistaken." 

" But  I  thought  you  had  signed"  — 

"  I  have  not  signed  !  "  said  the  Baroness. 

Felix  urged  her  no  further,  and  it  was  arranged 
that  he  should  immediately  assist  her  to  embark. 

Mr.  Brand  was  indeed,  it  appeared,  very  im- 
patient to  consummate  his  sacrifice  and  deliver 
the  nuptial  benediction  which  would  set  it  off  so 
handsomely;  but  Eugenia's  impatience  top  with- 
draw from  a  country  in  which  she  had  not  found 
the  fortune  she  had  come  to  seek  was  even  less 
to  be  mistaken.  It  is  true  she  had  not  made  any 
very  various  exertion ;  but  she  appeared  to  feel 
justified  in  generalizing  —  in  deciding  that  the 
conditions  of  action  on  this  provincial  continent 
were  not  favorable  to  really  superior  women. 
The  elder  world  was,  after  all,  their  natural  field. 
The  unembarrassed  directness  with  which  she 
proceeded  to  apply  these  intelligent  conclusions 
appeared  to  the  little  circle  of  spectators  who  have 
figured  in  our  narrative  but  the  supreme  exhibi- 
tion of  a  character  to  which  the  experience  of  life 
had  imparted  an  inimitable  pliancy.  It  had  a 
distinct  effect  upon  Robert  Acton,  who,  for  the 
two  days  preceding  her  departure,  was  a  very 


280  THE  EUROPEANS, 

restless  and  irritated  mortal.  She  passed  her  last 
evening  at  her  uncle's,  where  she  had  never  been 
more  charming ;  and  in  parting  with  Clifford 
Wentworth's  affianced  bride  she  drew  from  her 
own  finger  a  curious  old  ring  and  presented  it  to 
her  with  the  prettiest  speech  and  kiss.  Gertrude, 
who  as  an  affianced  bride  was  also  indebted  to 
her  gracious  bounty,  admired  this  little  incident 
extremely,  and  Robert  Acton  almost  wondered 
whether  it  did  not  give  him  the  right,  as  Lizzie's 
brother  and  guardian,  to  offer  in  return  a  hand- 
some present  to  the  Baroness.  It  would  have 
made  him  extremely  happy  to  be  able  to  offer  a 
handsome  present  to  the  Baroness  ;  but  he  ab- 
stained from  this  expression  of  his  sentiments, 
and  they  were  in  consequence,  at  the  very  last,  by 
so  much  the  less  comfortable.  It  was  almost  at 
the  very  last  that  he  saw  her  —  late  the  night 
before  she  went  to  Boston  to  embark. 

"  For  myself,  I  wish  you  might  have  stayed," 
he  said.  "  But  not  for  your  own  sa,ke." 

"  I  don't  make  so  many  differences,"  said  the 
Baroness.  "  I  am  simply  sorry  to  be  going." 

"  That 's  a  much  deeper  difference  than  mine," 
Acton  declared;  "for  you  mean  you  are  simply 
glad !  " 

Felix  parted  with  her  on  the  deck  of  the  ship. 
"  We  shall  often  meet  over  there,"  he  said. 


THE  EUROPEANS.  281 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  answered.  "  Europe  seems 
to  me  much  larger  than  America." 

Mr.  Brand,  of  course,  in  the  days  that  immedi- 
ately followed,  was  not  the  only  impatient  spirit ; 
but  it  may~be  said  that  of  all  the  young  spirits 
interested  in  the  event  none  rose  more  eagerly  to 
the  level  of  the  occasion.  Gertrude  left  her  father's 
house  with  Felix  Young ;  they  were  imperturba- 
bly  happy  and  they  went  far  away.  Clifford  and 
his  young  wife  sought  their  felicity  in  a  narrower 
circle,  and  the  latter's  influence  upon  her  husband 
was  such  as  to  justify,  strikingly,  that  theory  of 
the  elevating  effect  of  easy  intercourse  with  clever 
women  which  Felix  had  propounded  to  Mr.  Went- 
worth.  Gertrude  was  for  a  good  while  a  distant 
figure,  but  she  came  back  when  Charlotte  married 
Mr.  Brand.  She  was  present  at  the  wedding 
feast,  where  Felix's  gayety  confessed  to  no  change. 
Then  she  disappeared,  and  the  echo  of  a  gayety 
of  her  own,  mingled  with  that  of  her  husband, 
often  came  back  to  the  home  of  her  earlier  years. 
Mr.  Wentworth  at  last  found  himself  listening  for 
it;  and  Robert  Acton,  after  his  mother's  death, 
married  a  particularly  nice  young  girl. 


THE    END. 


